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. ^ifb SERMONS 



2* 



ON THE 



FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM, 



A2TD OX 



CATHOLICITY. 



BY THE 

REV. FERDINAND C. EWER, S. T. D., 

RECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH, NEW YORK. 






3 






t " 

STEW YORK: 

D. APPLETOJST AND COMPANY, 

90, 92 & 94 GRAND STEEET. 

1869. 






Enteeed, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S6S, by 

D. APPLETON & CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Conrt of the United States for 

the Southern District of New York. 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 028039 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



New York, November 19, 18S3. 

Rev. F. C. Ewer, D. D. : 

Beloved Rector,— The undersigned, Wardens and Vestrymen of 
Christ Church, respectfully request the manuscripts of your late able 
sermons on " The Failure of Protestantism " for publication ; believing, 
as they do, that the wide spreading of the same will prove a great bene- 
fit to the Catholic cause in the Church. 

Yery respectfully yours, 
(Signed) SPENCER K. GREEN, Senior Warden. 

JAMES DIXON, Junior Warden. 
JOHN H. RUCKEL, 
HENRY A. WILMERDLNG, 
JACOB LANSING, 
CHARLES T. COOK, 
GEORGE H. PERLNE, 



- Vestrymen. 



REPLY. 

Christ Church Rectory, 

New York, November 20, 1868. 

Dear Brethren : Your note of yesterday is before me. I beg you 
will accept my thanks for its kind expressions. Arrangements, how- 
ever, are already closed with the Messrs. Appleton, who have the ser- 
mons you allude to in hand for publication ; otherwise they would be 
freely at your disposal. 

Yery truly your friend and rector, 



To Messrs. Green, Dixon, Ruckel, 

and others, of the Vestry. 



F. C. EWER. 



NOTE. 

Inasmuch as the following Sermons were 
written to be preached before mixed congrega- 
tions, the reader will therefore pardon such 
repetition of ideas as he may observe. 

F. C. E. 

Christ Church Rectory, 1ST. Y., 

St. Andrew's Day, 1868. 



CONTENTS 



SERMON I. 

PAGE 

The Failure of Protestantism .... 7 

SERMON II. 

The Anglican Church not Protestant . . 24 

SERMON m. 

The Anglican Church Fundamentally Different from the 

Protestant Sects . . . . .42 

SERMON IV. 
Protestantism Logically Destructive of Christianity 15 

SERMON V. 

Protestantism one of the Three Great Heresies of the 

Christian Era . . . . .91 

SERMON VI. 

Catholicity, and its Presentment of Christianity, as op- 
posed to the Presentment made by Protestantism 109 



6 CONTENTS. 

SERMON YII. 

PAGE 

Reply to Protestant Criticisms on the preceding Ser- 
mons in the Religious Press and from the Pul- 
pit . . . . . .136 

SERMON VHT. 

The late Practical Admissions op the Failure of Prot- 
estantism by Protestants themselves . .151 



SEBMO^S. 



I. 

FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

" I came not to send peace but a sword." — St. Matt., x. 34. 

The history of Christianity illustrates this 
text. Her career has been marked by crises, 
when men, stirred by unusual "earnestness, have 
risen against the quiet order of things round about 
them. These crises have occurred at irregular 
intervals. They have always been provoked by 
some evil that has been long and silently growing. 
They are periods which try men's souls, because 
they are periods when new men attack old and 
cherished prejudices. In the second century after 
Christ the germs of what afterward became Ari- 
anism appeared in Lucian of Antioch. Those 
germs grew and spread in the Church silently, but 
so widely and alarmingly at last, as to lead earnest 
Catholics in the subsequent century to rise in 
their majesty, reassert the Faith in its purity as 



8 THE FAILUEE OF PROTESTANTISM 

it had come down from the Apostles, and brand 
the new dogmas as deadly heresy. In the Middle 
Ages Roman errors silently and slowly grew and 
spread, till at last, in the eleventh century, earnest 
Catholics in the Eastern portion of the Chnrch, 
endnring the evil no longer, rose in their majesty 
to condemn it ; and that non-intercommunion with 
Rome was decreed by the Orthodox Eastern (or 
Greek) Chnrch, which has lasted till to-day. In 
the Roman portion of the Church the same evils 
continued ,to grow, with new ones which broke 
out from time to time, until at last, in the sixteenth 
century, earnest men all over the West rose in 
their majesty against them; and we have the 
Reformation — so called. Subsequently coldness 
and deadness grew and spread in the Anglican 
portion of the Church, till at last, in the eighteenth 
century, those earnest souls, John and Chaeles 
Wesley, kindled the blaze of Methodism. God 
hath cast our lines at the opening of one of these 
crises. I would not have you un alive to the fact, 
or undervalue its importance. 

Eor many years men have been floating calmly 
down the stream of Christianity. There have 
been petty differences and discussions between 
sects, it is true, but no general upheaval. Foun- 
dations have been undisturbed. But now a storm 
is very evidently rising which is disturbing the 
bottom of affairs ; and it is impossible to predict 
how we shall all come out of it. There are evils 
raising great fronts around us, evils that have 



AS A EELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 9 

been long and silently growing. And as in the 
fourth century, as in the eleventh, as in the 
fifteenth, and as in the eighteenth, earnest souls 
are at last roused at these evils, and men are 
beginning boldly to speak out. It is note- 
worthy that the laity are ahead of the clergy 
in this matter. It is the evident and disastrous 
failure of Protestantism as a religious system, first, 
to reach the masses, and secondly, to preserve 
Christianity on earth, that is raising the mutter- 
ings of this storm. "What is it that is the mother 
of all this infidelity ? What is it that is the pro- 
lific cause of all this low grade of spirituality in 
character and life ? What is it that hath broken 
up respect for old age, for parents, for authorities ? 
What is .it that hath laid Christianity open to the 
successful attacks of any resolute skeptic ? What 
is it that hath dimmed the clearness of the eye of 
faith ? What is it that hath removed the spiritual 
world and its dwellers far off to an astronomical 
distance, practically sundering the communion of 
the saints by the wall of death ? What is it that 
hath substituted sentiment for principle — that 
standeth over the sick-bed anxious to wrest from 
the lips of the sufferer a cabalistic — a magical ut- 
terance about belief in Christ, that shall save him 
in his sins, but with scarce a word as to repent- 
ance and confession and amendment, and his sal- 
vation from sin ? What is it that is the prolific 
cause of all this absence of the self-sacrificing 
spirit ? What is it that has left the masses with- 
1* 



10 THE FAILUEE OF PEOTESTANTISM 

out a religion, and that has set us all on a course 
where we are at last ignorant as to how we can 
get at those masses? Mission Chapels for the 
poor, with Protestant or semi-Protestant services, 
and with a limited attendance at each of the well- 
to-do poor, are amiable but melancholy efforts of 
the day. God knows we are thankful for the 
good they do, but it is time that we no longer 
flattered ourselves that with them we are getting 
at the masses. The very pamphlets on church 
work that are pouring from the press are indica- 
tions that we are walking in darkness ; that we 
have been and are in the midst of some great 
blunder. What is it that hath set its face stub- 
bornly, and reared stubborn prejudices against 
the only appliances that have ever succeeded in 
reaching down to the masses so as to hold them 
under control ? It is time for us to ask how much 
the Protestant prejudices, which we have inherited 
from generations behind us by no means infallible, 
are worth, and how much they are costing. It is 
time for us to ask whether we shall longer weigh 
them against the Christianizing of millions of the 
neglected poor. What is it that hath left minis- 
ters stranded upon the high rocks of life, preach- 
ing to the select rich ? What is it that hath sold 
the gospel to the rich in the house of God ? 
What is it that hath hushed the voice of resound- 
ing praise throughout the great congregation, and 
delegated the praise of God to a salaried four? 
What is it that hath killed out from among us all 



AS A KELIGIOUS SYSTEM. \\ 

anxiety for the salvation of God's man, as a unit 
of creation, extending through all time and space 
on earth, and that has elevated instead that self- 
ish aspect of religion which makes it 'simply a 
process for the salvation of the given individual ? 
Your and my salvation, my brother, are, of course, 
all-important to ourselves ; but God, when He 
made His Church, made it for all time and for 
man, in the fullest meaning of the word. Nowa- 
days, however, so long as a given individual of 
to-day can " get saved " in some human religious 
institution, that institution is considered as an- 
swering all the purposes of the Church ; and there 
is not the slightest anxiety as to whether or not 
that institution contain a theological disease 
which will kill it, and leave the individual of two 
centuries hence without any institution to " get 
saved in." 

I propose to call your attention to a few of the 
facts that mark the disastrous failure of Protestant- 
ism ; and to ask you whether those facts are not 
enough of themselves — to say nothing of others — 
to stir to its depths any spirit that has a particle 
of earnestness. And I warn you beforehand, that, 
if Protestantism has failed, we are not to look to 
Pome for a cure. A recent able writer * has said, 
this would be but to fly from the effect to the 
cause. Justly has he said it ; for Protestantism 
was produced by the errors of Pome ; and why 
fly for cure from a system that has proved itself 

* The Rev. Dr. M. Dix. 



12 THE FAILUEE OF PROTESTANTISM 

false ill tlie nineteenth century to one that proved 
itself false in the fifteenth % 

I remark, first, that in this city there are 300 
churches— some of them large — most of them 
comparatively small. They will hold, when all 
full, say about 200,000 persons— call it 250,000. 
Where are the other three-quarters of a million 
of people in this city every Sunday ? Making a 
liberal allowance for children too young to attend, 
for the sick who cannot, and for all engaged in 
employments for the public convenience, and 
considering those of our vast floating population 
who attend as strangers, and considering, more- 
over, the empty seats in all the churches each Sun- 
day, there is an enormous residue that are non- 
church-goers. Compare, nay, contrast the im- 
mense church-attendance of the population in 
Roman and Greek Catholic countries with the at- 
tendance of the mere fragment of the population 
in Protestant lands. My friends, have you ever 
thought of the fact that there are countless thou- 
sands all over this land, that have rejected Protes- 
tantism ? Have you ever thought of the fact that 
Germany has, as a nation, rejected Protestantism % 
Look, too, at K"ew England, the headquarters of 
Infidelity in America. Look, too, at the Protestant 
Cantons of Switzerland. I do not mean to say 
that, in rejecting Protestantism, these countless 
thousands have taken to Rome ; but they have at 
any rate abandoned the Protestant presentment 
of Christianity. There is scarcely a man or a 



AS A EELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 13 

woman in the land that has not a relative — shall 
I not say relatives ? — who, while they still have 
a kind of respect for the Christian religion, no 
longer believe those dogmas that all Protestant 
denominations preach in common. The fact is, 
with the most of them, dogmatic Christianity is 
identified with its Protestant presentment. They 
know no other ; and, in abandoning Christianity 
for skepticism, it is Protestantism that they have 
weighed in the balances and found wanting. And 
there are thousands of men and women, therefore, 
that at last do not go to church anywhere. These 
men and women are rearing children; and the 
latter are, by example, by casual domestic remark, 
and by carelessness of their parents, inheriting a 
similar abandonment. Protestantism has been 
trying to meet the evil by modifying and soften- 
ing some of its subordinate dogmas. But people 
see that its fundamental dogmas remain, and that 
the modified subordinate dogmas only make the 
whole system more thoroughly inconsistent with 
itself; and so the great evil of abandonment grows 
greater and greater. 

Now rise a grade above this class, and take the 
men and women that do attend church. How 
many of them are there that really believe Chris- 
tianity as presented by Protestantism ? Some of 
its dogmas they believe from habit, from early 
prejudice, or they scarcely know why. But those • 
whose minds are shaken as to the rest form a very 
large element of every Protestant congregation. 



14 THE FAILUEE OF PKOTESTANTISM. 

Tliis is a fact which the clergy may not wish to 
contemplate. But it is a fact. Here we see not 
total abandonment, but that process of abandon- 
ment in progress, which has been working for 
much more than a century, and whiph is at last 
very noticeable from the large proportions it has 
at length assumed. These two classes I have men- 
tioned form the vast bulk of the community. Isn't 
that an alarming fact ? What are you going to do 
with your prejudices against Catholicity under the 
circumstances? Mark me; I make a sharp dis- 
tinction between Catholicity and Romanism. Now 
turn and look at the individuals that compose 
these two classes. There was a time when it was 
the staple remark that men became infidels be- 
cause they desired to live a wicked or careless life. 
Doubtless there are some even to-day who are 
skeptics for the above-mentioned reason. But it 
were sheer blindness thus to account for the pres- 
ent general disease of infidelity w T hich afflicts the 
community. Look around upon our relatives and 
friends who belong to the two great classes I have 
spoken of. Are they bad men ? No. Are they 
unreasoning or unreasonable men ? No. Are 
they unearnest men? No. Many of them are 
filled with the spirit of honesty, and truthfulness, 
and uprightness, and conscientiousness, and noble- 
ness, and generosity, and hospitality, and kindness 
of heart, filled with all that which is the very basis 
of religion. Often they are men that stir our ad- 
miration for their good, qualities of mind, and 



AS A EELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 15 

heart, and conscience. But they are logical men 
— men who cannot be stayed from passing into 
the legitimate conclusions that follow from false 
premises ; and they have, therefore, consciously and 
conscientiously rejected (that is the word, rejected), 
either in whole or in part, the Protestant present- 
ment of Christianity, and deliberately remain in 
their rejection. The grandfathers were Calvinistic 
Presbyterians, the fathers were Congregationalists, 
the sons were Unitarians, the grandsons are Par- 
kerites and infidels. The attempt to mend Protes- 
tantism as a religious system ends in abandoning 
it altogether as a hopeless case. The Rationalists 
have a ground to stand on; the true Catholics 
have a ground to stand on ; but Protestantism has 
no locus standi (if I may use such a phrase), and its 
process of disappearing I have given above. The 
men I speak of either do not think of or do not 
care to accept Pome, and so they are left without 
any distinctive religion, unless we can say, indeed, 
that each has his own. 

The two basis ideas of Protestantism are, first, 
" the Bible, and the Bible only for Christians ; " 
secondly, " each man practically his own infallible 
interpreter of it." Now, the consequence of this 
is, that Protestantism has not fostered humility, 
but arrogance. It has not cast over the individual 
mind the wholesome shadow of a distrust in its own 
ignorance, or partial views, or unexamined preju- 
dices; but it has spread broadcast the rampant 
spirit of practical individual infallibility. And 



IQ THE FAILUEE OF PROTESTANTISM 

so these men, nursed in that school, absorbing the 
spirit from the very atmosphere about them, are 
perfectly satisfied, unalarmed, and at peace, each 
in his own partial or complete infidelity. Then, 
again, they see how these two basis ideas have led 
to the thousand conflicting sects of Protestantism, 
the splitting up of denominations on little petty 
points which their common sense tells them are 
unimportant ; and so they gladly escape the maze 
in disgust, and, with a self-complacent down-look- 
ing upon the whole field of battling Protestant 
sects, settle down themselves into the mere religion 
of being good men. It is all very well, it is praise- 
worthy, this being a good man ; but it isn't Chris- 
tianity. And so far as all these men are concerned, 
Jesus Christ was incarnate, died, rose, established 
His Church and endowed it with His life-nurturing 
Sacraments in vain. So far as these men are con- 
cerned, God inspired the Bible in vain ; for they 
reject it. They will take parts of the Bible and 
say they are true ; but it is because those parts 
appeal to their minds as true. That is to say, 
Protestantism has wrecked the community on the 
rocks of individualism, and left each man to be a 
Bible to himself. Some people say, "Any good 
man is a Christian." But there were good men 
and true and honest before Christ came, millions 
of them. Ancient civilizations could not have ex- 
isted ; indeed, no civilization can exist without an 
enormous leaven of such elements. But the phrase 
" any good man is a Christian," and the phrase 



AS A EELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 17 

" a true Christian is a good man/' are by no means 
identical. A good man is not necessarily a Chris- 
tian. A true Christian is a good man, of course ; 
but he is a good man who accepts the Bible and 
all its truths and commands, who accepts the in- 
carnate Christ as his Saviour, and the Blessed 
Sacraments as the instrumental means of salvation 
appointed and commanded by Christ. 

Now, what is it that has led to and is respon- 
sible for the rise of these two enormous classes in 
the community ? My friends, it isn't Christianity 
as presented by the One Holy Catholic and Apos- 
tolic Church ; for She has not yet got the ear of 
the people, and Her truths are moreover very much 
hushed even in Her own pulpits. jSTay, it is the 
Protestant presentment of Christianity that has 
had their ear for the last two centuries. By its 
fruits shall ye know it. And this wholesale aban- 
donment of it, that has been silently and steadily 
spreading in the last century, till it has invaded 
every family, is one of the indications of the failure 
of Protestantism as a system ; and is arousing 
many reluctant but determined souls to the sad 
duty of dragging down that which has been quietly 
sitting on a throne as a king, too sacred to be 
touched, and solemnly arraigning it at the bar for 
trial. Protestantism, give us back our fathers, 
our children, our husbands, that are lost in the 
forests of skepticism ! It is this that is arousing 
and banding together a broad Catholic party in 
the Church, which, if it will not close its eyes to 



18 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM 

tlie Roman failure of the fifteenth century (a fail- 
ure made doubly disastrous by the Bull of 1854), 
is determined no longer to close its eyes to the 
Protestant failure of the nineteenth. A party 
that is determined to maintain and spread all that 
is truly Catholic that has come down from the 
past, and combine with it all of the present that 
has proved itself good, both in thought and in 
appliance. It is this that has provoked the begin- 
nings of a second reformation, that will be a 
Reformation indeed ; Reformation^ did I say ? 
Restoration is the better word. 

In this claim that Protestantism has failed, you 
will not, of course, understand me as asserting that 
there was nothing good in the upheaval of the six- 
teenth century. This would be but mere extrava- 
gance, foolish exaggeration, and not the result of 
that calm, attentive out-look which the seriousness 
of the times and its dangers demand. That up- 
heaval was as much in the interest of true Catho- 
licity as it was in the interest of Protestantism. 
Nor will you understand me as meaning to say 
that, with all the enormous evils of the Protestant 
Heresy, there is nothing whatever that is good in 
it. Catholics are not unmindful that the Meth- 
odists, for instance, have struck something that is 
in harmony with human nature ; and that that 
something ~can be wielded on the naturally enthu- 
siastic heart of man in a better way, and on Chris- 
tian rather than rationalistic plan. Make the man 
one with Christ through the sacramental system, 



AS A KELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 19 

and then bring in the lever of enthusiasm, and you 
have not substituted practical Immediation for 
Mediation, nor struck a ruinous blow at the foun- 
dation of Christianity. Catholics are not unmind- 
ful of Baptist practice or Unitarian literature. 
But I cannot pause upon this point. 

I hasten to a second indication of the failure 
of Protestantism as a system. And I do so by 
asking the question : Protestantism, where are the 
masses % "When we run our eye over the different 
sects, we are struck with the fact that each is made 
up of a peculiar type of man. There is, for in- 
stance, the Methodist type, and the denomination 
vary to greater or less extent around the type ; 
then there is the Presbyterian type, and the Bap- 
tist, and the Quaker. I am not speaking dispara- 
gingly; far be it from me to do so. The whole 
matter is too serious. But we all know that men 
are constituted differently, and have different ap- 
pearances. This is so nationally. ]STo one would 
mistake a Frenchman for a Scotchman or for a 
German. This is so, too, inside of our people. 
So that, speaking generally, there are nice points 
by which men may be classified. Now, as a fact, 
Protestantism has been able in the past to draw 
to itself, at least for a while, only certain classes 
of men and women. And the patent fact remains 
that it has failed to attract man in all his condi- 
tions and kinds. Of course, I do not mean to 
charge against it that it has not Christianized the 
whole world. What I mean to say is, that it has 



20 THE FAILUEE OF PROTESTANTISM 

failed to be a religion suited to every kind of even 
the Aryan man. There are men of aesthetic 
tastes ; its cold and mean appearance repels them. 
There are men who want a positive faith ; its shift- 
ing dogmas disgust them. There are holy women 
and self-sacrificing men who would gladly live a 
life of self-abnegation and high spirituality, who 
would gladly give themselves up as laymen and 
laywomen to a life of prayer and charity ; it 
frowns upon Sisterhoods and Brotherhoods ; it 
says to such, Get you gone from my doors, I have 
no place nor need for such as you ; and it turns 
them back either into the world or to Rome. 
Christ's cause needs vast amounts of money all 
the time ; it has fostered selfishness toward Christ, 
so that when the offertory-plate passes down its 
aisles it is considered that the act should be toler- 
ated as an exception ; and, if it passes too often, 
the offertory-plate is regarded as a positive intru- 
sion. As a fact, after two hundred and forty years 
of trial with a fair field, even where, as in this 
country, it has been overwhelmingly in the as- 
cendant, it has failed to reach the masses. It has 
failed, even though it has preached, in very loud 
tones too at times, all the terrors of hell-fire, and 
pictured by contrast all the gross splendors of a 
physical heaven. And it is this, too, that is stir- 
ring earnest men. "Where are the masses ? Why 
do your appliances fail to make permanent harvests 
among them ? God's man, for whom He sent 
Christianity, includes not only the rich merchant, 



AS A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 21 

and the respectable retail dealer, and the well- 
dressed, well-to-do and thrifty artisan, with whom 
your meeting-hoiises are filled, but the great base 
of the community also, the ragged laborer and the 
squalid. Where are the latter in your pews and 
at your meetings? Where is your control over 
them ? Politics gathers in all indiscriminately at 
its assemblages. How about Christianity ? What 
is the matter with you? How long will you 
blindly hug your prejudices, and leave Rome to 
be the only one that can reach down to and con- 
trol the masses ? My friends, look at the Koman 
and the Greek branches of the Church, and 
contrast them with Protestantism in this respect. 
Why is it that the Anglican branch of the one great 
Catholic Church has no more succeeded with 
the masses than has Protestantism ? Why is it 
that there is an Episcopal type of man ? It is be- 
cause we have run our Catholic and Apostolic 
wheels in the Protestant, Calvinistic, and Lutheran 
ruts, which they do not fit, never will, and never 
can. But wherever we have returned to, as in 
Holborn, London, and other places, and tried 
fairly our own true Catholic plan, we have, glory 
be to God, reached down to the masses, and 
gathered in all grades of men from highest to low- 
est. God is asking of Protestantism, Where are 
the masses ? And God is saying to us, I gave you 
the ten Catholic talents ; why have you hid them 
in a napkin ? 

It is not because the clergy and laity of Prot- 



22 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM 

estantism are unalive to the wants of the masses, 
or to their own duty in the premises, that Protes- 
tantism has made its signal failure. They are 
earnest and godly men. Heaven knows, they 
spare no efforts ; instant in season, ont of season, 
earnest in prayer and in work. But this only 
makes the matter worse. The fault is not in 
them. Men are often better than their systems, 
and, without doubt, the Protestant clergy and 
laity stand acquitted, while their system stands 
condemned. 

I have mentioned but two counts in the pre- 
sentment ; time forbids me to go on with many 
others. But these alone, viz., first, the wholesale 
abandonment of Protestantism by large masses 
of thinking and good men, and, secondly, its fail- 
ure to reach the masses, are signs of the times 
worthy of the thought of the churchman ; and the 
two facts account, in some part, for a movement 
among us, which has not had its equal in earnest- 
ness and determination since the days of John 
Wesley ; which is destined to lead to far more 
important results than his ; a movement, my 
friends, which is deeper than ritualism, of which 
ritual is a mere fluttering red feather ; a restating 
of the old Catholic and Apostolic grounds, free 
from admixture with Romish error ; a return- 
ing to the old Catholic modes and appliances 
which belong to the Church as a reformed body, 
but which were torn out of Her one hundred 
years after She had reformed, and not by Her 



AS A EELIGIOUS SYSTEM. 23 

friends, but by Her enemies — Oliver Cromwell 
and his Roundheads, who broke into Her for that 
purpose; the scattered fragments of which the 
poor Church (when She rose from the prostrate and 
stunned condition in which Cromwell left Her) did 
not gather together for a while, and which have now 
been so long disused that we scarce know what 
they were. One thing we know : Our Church is 
a Catholic Church which has been worked on 
Protestant principles; and that something must 
be done. The masses must be reached, and this 
growing infidelity stopped by a more reasonable 
presentment of Christianity than Protestantism 
has succeeded in making, even by the widespread 
presentment of our true Catholic Christianity. 

There is a school of thought in the Church 
which is " Broad " without the " Church." These 
would plunge us into rationalism. There is a 
school of thought that is " Church " without the 
" Broad." These would stiffen the Church into a 
fossil. But there is a school which is Catholic 
enough to hold to and get back all that has proved 
itself good in the past, and Broad enough not to 
hesitate to adopt all that has proved itself good in 
the present. This school is determined to hold 
up the Catholic Church in Her continuous life as 
God's Divine Institution, coming down with au- 
thority, and adapted to the wants of every man 
and of every century. 

In a subsequent discourse I shall endeavor to 
answer the question, What is the Catholic Church ? 



n. 



THE ANGLICAN CHURCH NOT PROTES- 
TANT. 

" The Pillar and Ground of the Truth."— 1 Tim. iii. 15. 

Ix accordance with the promise at the close 
of last Sunday's sermon, I am to speak to you of 
the Catholic Church. Two points are before me, 
viz. : first, to show briefly what the Catholic 
Church is ; and secondly, to show that we are a 
part of that Church. 

The word " Catholic " has its own, that is to 
say, its proper meaning. It has been used, in 
various languages, to convey this meaning, for 
eighteen hundred years. But there is an inclina- 
tion among the sects to foist upon it a new mean- 
ing, not its own ; to give it the meaning of " uni- 
versal " in a certain vague sense, and then to say, 
" Oh, we are all Catholics." The fact is, it really 
expresses a large and glorious idea; Protestants 
know it, and therefore desire the word for their 
own. But it is doubtful whether the 270,000,000 
of Catholics will permit the 74,000,000 of Protes- 



ANGLICAN CHUECH NOT PEOTESTANT. 25 

tants to change its meaning for their own pur- 
poses.* Depend upon it, that when a Protestant 
utters the language of the Catholic creed, and 
says, " I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," he 
does not mean what that phrase was written to 
mean, and has meant for centuries, and honestly 
means to-day. There is a mental reservation 
within him. But there is this comfort, namely : 
even though Protestants steal the name, they can 
never wipe out that mighty thing of which, since 
the opening of the Christian era, it has been the 
title. 

However, when we leave names and come to 
things, we find persons even in the Church, who 
glory in that which is known under the term 
u Protestant." And such persons would trium- 
phantly ask, " What ! is not our Church ' Protes- 
tant ? ' Are we not the Protestant Episcopal 
Church % " In part reply to such I make this 
preliminary remark, viz., that the term " Protes- 
tant Episcopal " has never been formally adopted 
as a title for our Church. It is barely possible 
that I have overlooked the supposed fact of such 
adoption, but I hardly think it can be so. As 
nearly as I can find, the title stole in upon us like 
a thief in the night. "What appears to be the 
history of the case ? Why, the title of the Prayer- 
Book of the Church of England was, " The Book 
of Common Prayer, etc., of The Church, accord- 

* The Roman Catholics number 1T0,000,000 ; the Greek Cath- 
olics, S0,000,000 ; and the Anglican Catholics, 20,000,000. 
2 



26 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

ing to the Use of the United Church of England 
and Ireland." That is to. say, " The Prayer-Book 
of The Church — of God's Church in England." 
This title recognized that there was only One 
Church. Yery well ; before the Revolution it 
was the same in America. After the Revolution, 
it became necessary for the Church — for God's 
Church — to have a Prayer-Book suited to its wants 
in America as ah independent nation. A general 
convention was held here. That convention ex- 
pressly declared that, in whatever it did, it was 
" far from intending to depart from the Church 
of England in any essential point of doctrine." 
Now, that convention was an exceedingly small 
body ; for the Church in America almost died 
during the Revolution. But, before the conven- 
tion was held, several preliminary meetings of 
churchmen convened. The calls for these meet- 
ings were issued by irresponsible persons ; and in 
those calls those private individuals — those irre- 
sponsible persons — designated the Church as the 
"Protestant Episcopal Church," as though God 
had a dozen other different kinds of Churches. 
It was their mere notion to call it so. Yery nat- 
urally (considering the times) the same name, hav- 
ing thus been brought out, was used in all the 
subsequent letters that passed to and fro concern- 
ing the movement; and was continued in the 
summons for the first general convention. It was 
used by the few individual members of that con- 
vention in their speeches. It got into resolutions 



ANGLICAN CHUKCH NOT PROTESTANT. 27 

they offered, and into other documents that were 
adopted by the convention. It continued its 
stealthy advance, and got on to the title-page of 
the Ritual that was adopted. "Who put it there ? 
What printer, what private member of a commit- 
tee, what unauthorized person ? In vain have I 
searched the records of those early days, to find 
that the convention ever adopted the title-page to 
the Prayer-Book. Thus, it has secured a tacit 
sanction as a title, or rather, I should perhaps be 
more accurate in saying, a tacit acceptance as a 
title ; but I repeat, it was never formally adopted 
as such by the Church here in her corporate capa- 
city. The fact is, the question concerning a proper 
title for the Church never came up. The very ut- 
most that can be said is, that the title has only 
had a mere quasi adoption. But the question is 
up now fairly and squarely ; and it is for us to 
consider whether we ought longer tacitly to sanc- 
tion the title by putting forth every new official 
document in the name of the " Protestant Epis- 
copal" Church. 

The name has wrought us untold harm and 
loss. It has falsified our position in the eyes of 
the public. It has identified us with those who 
hate our distinctive and vital peculiarities, our 
Apostolic succession, our non-recognition of man- 
made ministries, our non-reception of their " ordi- 
nance " of the Lord's Supper at their hands, our 
real presence of Christ in the Blessed Eucharist, 
our baptismal regeneration, our natural sym- 



28 THE FAILUKE OF PBOTESTANTISM. 

pathies with the Greek Church, which they re- 
gard as only one step less vile and monstrous than 
Rome. It has fostered within us a Puritan, a 
strictly Protestant and un - Church sentiment, 
which has at last come out in a pink-covered 
pamphlet, asking whether there are not Catholic 
(the writer calls it " Romanizing ") germs in the 
Prayer-Book ; a pamphlet which admits that those 
who hold sound Church sentiments among us 
have, after all, been all along true to their Prayer- 
Book (the " precious " Prayer-Book of the Evan- 
gelicals), and true to their Church, and which 
proves in a most masterly way that, if the Prayer- 
Book is to suit the sentiments of the other, the so- 
called "Evangelical" party, it must be altered 
very materially. 

Now, what is Protestantism, and what is Ca- 
tholicity? Then, we shall be able to tell very 
easily whether our Church is Catholic or Protes- 
tant. Of course, I cannot answer these great 
questions in one discourse. I beg you to note, 
moreover, that it is not my present purpose to 
prove that the Catholic view is true ; this would 
open up too wide a field ; but merely to give a 
general idea of what Catholicity is as contrasted 
with Protestantism. The day is past for us longer 
to talk about " High Church " and " Low Church." 
The battle has widened out on to a larger field. 
The real struggle has larger scope. We have got 
to come up out of mere Anglicanism to the high 
standard of Catholicism. As Protestantism is 



ANGLICAN CHUECH NOT PEOTESTANT. 29 

mere incipient rationalism, the first duty of Catho- 
licity is, to throttle it ; we must clear the field 
first, that the grand, the only real struggle, may 
be set between Catholicity and rationalism itself. 

Now, I desire to say this first, viz..: there are 
certain views held in the Eoman Church which 
are not Catholic, that is to say, are not held by 
the Catholic Church; and yet Home is a Catholic 
Church. This may seem a strange, perhaps a 
self-contradictory statement to you ; but I hope to 
make it clear by-and-by. And there are certain 
views held in the Greek Church, and certain other 
views held by our Church, which are not Cath- 
olic; and yet the Greek and the Anglican are 
both Catholic Churches. 

I remark, first, then, Protestantism founds the 
Church on the Bible, making the Bible prior. On 
the other hand, Catholicity rests the Bible on the 
Church, making the Church prior. Ask a Protes- 
tant which he believes first, Church or Bible ? and 
he will say, " Bible." Ask him which he believes 
because of the other ? and he will say, " I believe 
in a Church, because I believe in the Bible." 
" You start, then, with the Bible ? " " Yes." 
" But how do you know the Bible is the Word of 
God ? n " Why, I know it because ' All Scripture 
is given by inspiration of God.' " " But, my 
friend, the question is, what is Scripture ? how do 
you know that these sixty-six books are the Scrip- 
ture ? Why is ' Solomon's Song ' Scripture, and 
not the 'Book of Wisdom?' Whv the 'Epistle 



30 THE FAILUEE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

of St. Jude,' and not the ' Epistle of St. Clement? ' 
Where do you find in the Bible an inspired list of 
canonical books ? And, if there were such list, 
how could you know that that list itself was in- 
spired? If you fall back for aid on the holy 
Apostles, you find them quoting the 'Book of 
Enoch,' and displaying familiarity with ' Wisdom ' 
and ' Ecciesiasticus,' and even quoting passages 
from the heathen poets." The Protestant has no 
answer ; or he may take refuge in the remark that 
he believes the Bible on account of its evidences. 
" But have you ever personally examined those 
evidences to see if they are sound ?•" " No ; but 
others have, and so, the Bible being generally 
accepted, I accept it." And after a series of ques- 
tions, my brethren, you find it all comes to this, 
namely, that he believes the Bible to be the In- 
fallible Word of God, on the testimony and 
assurance of fallible men. As another has ex- 
pressed it, the world is put very comfortably on 
an elephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, but 
the poor tortoise rests nowhere. My friends, you 
may lay the Bible open, and you may scatter your 
open Bible till it is in every household, hotel, and 
steamboat ; but for all that, if it rests nowhere, it 
will fall, as it has fallen in Germany, ISTew Eng- 
land, and wherever Protestantism prevails. If 
Borne has been in error for closing the Bible (and 
there is no doubt but that She was in grievous er- 
ror for so doing), did it ever strike you that She 
has nevertheless somehow succeeded in preserving 



ANGLICAN CHUSCH NOT PEOTESTANT. 31 

a hearty, unreserved belief in it, and a reverence 
for it throughout her people, which Protestantism, 
with its Strausses and Parkers and Martineaus 
and Unitarians and hundreds of thousands of 
skeptics, has lamentably failed to do % An open 
Bible is indispensable for the world's good (there 
is no mistake about that), when your open Bible 
is tenderly cared for, and not thrown away, till 
people regard it as little worth. But many per- 
sons suppose that Protestantism and an open Bible 
are almost synonymous terms. Ah, but we must 
couple something else with the phrase "open 
Bible," if we would have it express the actual re- 
sult of Protestantism round about us. That re- 
sult is "an open Bible" indeed, but it is "an 
open Bible torn to pieces." We thank Protes- 
tantism for helping true Catholicity in England 
to open the Bible ; we have no thanks for the rest 
she has done, and we will not close our eyes 
to it. 

I do not mean to imply that there is no in- 
fidelity and no tampering with the Holy Bible in 
Roman Catholic lands. But I assert that such in- 
fidelity as there is in Roman lands has sprung out 
of the extravagances and the errors which Rome 
has superadded to her Catholic system. We 
equally oppose the Protestant heresy and the Ro- 
man alterations of Catholicity. Both have wrought 
vast evils upon the world. But I am not now 
treating Romanism, therefore I pass on. 

Now, on the other hand, how is it with Catho- 



32 THE FAILURE OE PROTESTANTISM. 

licity? It rests the Bible on the Church. The 
Catholic knows the Bible is the Word of God, be- 
cause the infallible Church tells him it is. But 
how does he know that the Church is infallible ? 
I find, he replies, all round about me as a matter 
of notoriety, " a vast body existing in the world, 
professing to be the keeper, guardian, and inter- 
preter of a book called the Bible." This body is 
not an abstract idea ; it is an actuality in visible 
existence round about me. It has definite limits 
and visible peculiarities, so that I may recognize 
and know what and where it is. I trace this body 
from the present down through past centuries. I 
find it diminishing in size as I go back. 1 trace 
it continuously down and into the first century. 
I find it passing down deeper than the New Testa- 
ment. I find it (earlier than the date of the New 
Testament) resting back into the holy apostles 
and Christ. And I find that they, upon whom 
the Church thus rests back as a basis, are sur- 
rounded by a glory of miracles and other positive 
attestations that they are from God, and act au- 
thoritatively. I find, in fact, that God was with 
them, nay, that God Himself came down and be- 
came man, to be — not the founder of something 
different and distinct from Himself, but the very 
Beginning and continuous Life of that Church, 
just as the individuality that is in the infant con- 
tinues through and pervades its subsequent exist- 
ence. I find that God, when He became man, 
and thus created the Church in and on Himself, 



ANGLICAN CHUECH NOT PEOTESTANT. 33 

and as an inseparable part of Himself, imparted 
to It the Truth, gave It authority to teach that 
Truth to all the world, and promised to continue 
with It till the end of time, guiding It infallibly. 
Thus I have the Church resting back, not on the 
New Testament, but resting back behind the New 
Testament, on no less than the Truth Incarnate 
Himself. If Christ is in and through the Church 
as Its very Life and Soul, then, of course, the 
Church cannot err. And if, on the other hand, 
the Church can err, then it cannot be that the In- 
carnate Truth Himself pervades Her. So you 
must either have an infallible Church, or a Church 
without Christ. And Protestantism can take 
either horn of the dilemma it likes. To have 
an infallible Church, I must have that on which 
She rests, and which ever after pervades Her, 
to be no less and no other than the Truth In- 
carnate. And, furthermore, I find myself forced 
to believe that Jesus Christ, who founded the 
Church, and promised to be with Her, was the 
Truth Incarnate, because I find, behind Him in 
time, a glorious series of prophecies that such a 
Being should come, converging toward Him out 
of long prior ages, and centring at last upon Him. 
We do not reason in a circle. We do not 
prove the New Testament by the Church and 
then the Church by the New Testament. The 
Bible is a revelation of divine mysteries ; but this 
visible Church — running back with continuous 

life behind the New Testament, and on to a basis 

2* 



34 THE FAILUEE OE PROTESTANTISM. 

which is itself surrounded by a glory of miracles, 
that basis resting upon long prior prophecy as a 
substructure — is an historic fact ; and, if the Bible 
were to-day wiped out of existence, could be 
traced back like any other stupendous and patent 
fact in the world's career. 

Now, during the first hundred years or more 
of the existence of this Church, many gospels and 
epistles were written to Her. And she, already 
in existence before them, and already having the 
promise that the Incarnate Truth who was in Her 
would guide Her infallibly, selects certain ones 
out of the multitude of documents written to 
Her, binds them into a ISTew Testament, preserves 
them and hands them on to me as the infallible 
"Word of God. Thus I have either an infallible 
"Word of God, resting on an infallible Church, 
which itself, as an historic fact, rests on the Truth 
Incarnate, w^ho surrounded Himself with a glory 
of miracles when He came, to give me notice that 
He had come, and to Whom a long series of prior 
supernatural events in the world's history pointed, 
or I have nothing under the sun that I can trust 
in as a Bible. The very infallibility of the Bible 
demands the infallibility of the Church ; the two 
stand or fall together. 

Now, beloved, the Church was to be the pillar 
and ground of the truth, the keeper of the Word, 
as an invaluable deposit for all time. Let us see, 
then, whether Protestantism is trustworthy in this 
respect; whether it has kept the Word. Are 



ANGLICAN CHUECH NOT PBOTESTANT. 35 

sacraments in the Bible, Baptism, the Holy Com- 
munion, Orders ? Tes. Well, are Quakers Prot- 
estants? Yes. But they have given up sacra- 
ments. Protestantism has let a portion of the 
Word slip out, then, at that hole. Is Confirmation 
in the Bible? Yes? "Well, are Presbyterians 
and Congregationalists and Baptists Protestants ? 
, Yes. But they do not believe in Confirmation, 
and do not practise it. Protestantism has let an- 
other portion slip out, then, at that hole. Is the 
Old Testament a part of the Bible ? Yes. Are 
Unitarians Protestants? Yes. But Unitarians 
as a body think very little of the Old Testament ; 
they have dropped it to all intents and purposes 
as an effete book ; some of them more, some of 
them less of it. So Protestantism has let a por- 
tion slip out at that hole. Are the Parkerite- 
Unitarians Protestants? Yes. Well, are the 
Epistles a portion of God's infallible Word to us ? 
Yes. But Parkerites say they are not. So Prot- 
estantism has let another portion slip out at that 
hole. Now take the balance of the Bible, namely, 
the four Gospels. Are they a part of God's Word 
to us? Yes. But is the Church up here on 
Fortieth Street Protestant? Yes; but its pastor 
writes and teaches in last August's magazine that 
the four Gospels are fables born of the heated and 
hero-worshipping imagination of centuries subse- 
quent to Jesus ; and that, as for the actual Jesus 
that lived, a true record of Him is hopelessly lost 
to history. So Protestantism has let a portion of 



36 THE FAILUEE OF PBOTESTANTISM. 

the Bible, and the balance of it, slip out at that 
bole. 

Now, on the other hand, does the Greek 
Church hold to the whole Bible ? Yes. Does the 
Roman? Yes. Does the Anglican? Yes; and' 
when Colenso rises to say the Word of God is not 
the Bible, but is somewhere scattered round in it, 
nobody can tell where, the Anglican Church rises 
in all its national parts and ejects him as a here- 
tic. That, then, which is the pillar and ground 
of the truth, the keeper of the Bible, is Catholicity 
only. The Church, then, which the Protestant's 
Bible speaks to him of, cannot be his Protestant- 
ism, but must be that vast Organic Body he so 
much hates, of which the Greek, the Anglican, 
and the Roman are parts. That Church, accord- 
ing to promise, has not erred as a whole, however 
Its parts may each have errors of its own. And 
all that we want in the great Catholic movement 
of to-day is for the three parts mutually and lov- 
ingly to point out each other's errors, as they are 
beginning to do, and for each of the three to look 
candidly at its own ; remembering that God has 
not promised infallibility to any one part, how- 
Qver large, any more than He has to any one 
individual, but only to the whole in their united, 
corporate and historic capacity. And that, there- 
fore, any part, whether the Roman, the Greek, or 
the Anglican, when acting alone, is liable to err. 
And that no part — neither the Roman, the Greek 
nor the Anglican — has the right to set up its pecu- 



ANGLICAN CHUECH NOT PEOTESTANT. 37 

liar dogmas and impose them as Catholic truth on 
its sister parts. "When the whole Catholic Church 
speaks again, then it will do for ns to listen. 
Then we nrust listen. Now, as a whole, She has 
spoken in times past. She has spoken through 
Her six General Councils and their creeds. She 
stands in the past speaking to ns throngh Her 
consenting voice touching the Eucharist, the doc- 
trine of Baptism, the " other sacraments," as our 
Homily expresses it, and the glorious garments 
and stately forms that befit their administration. 
Protestantism cares nothing for all this — she hates 
it— she cares not for those General Councils. But 
see how the instinct of Catholicity bows humbly 
to them. And if you would test whether onr 
Church is Protestant or Catholic, mark how She 
accepts the creed of those Councils, guards it as 
too sacred to be touched, makes her children re- 
peat it often, and, when leaning over the death- 
bed, tells them that She will rehearse to them the 
articles of the Christian faith " that they may know 
whether they do believe as Christian men should 
or no. 5 ' 

I find that the subject is large, and that my 
time is rapidly passing, while I have but skir- 
mished on the borders of the great topic. Should 
I take up a second point, it would prolong this 
discourse unduly. I must therefore postpone the 
second point, and beg to continue and close this 
sermon with a thought suggested by what I have 
said above. One of the ablest of our American 



38 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

clergy said, not long since (he did not express his 
thought in the same language, bnt it is substan- 
tially the same idea), that we have all of us been 
saying for years, " I believe in the Holy Catholic 
Church." But what have we been meaning all 
along ? "We have been meaning something very 
like this, viz. : I believe in the Holy Catholic 
Church — that is to say, from the year 33 to the 
year 100, entirely. I believe in the Holy Catho- 
lic Church from the year 100 to the year 600, to a 
certain degree. I believe in the Holy Catholic 
Church from the year 600 to the year 1500, not at 
all. I believe in the Holy Catholic Church from 
the year 1500 to the present time — that is to say, 
in my portion of it. But, beloved, that is not the 
Holy Catholic Church of your creed. "We belong 
to a local Church ; and we have been in the habit 
of calling the Anglican the Church, as though it 
were the whole. Just so Eome has called herself 
the Church, as though She were the whole ; and 
the Greeks have called themselves the Church, as 
though they were the whole. But what is all this 
but the spirit of mere sectarianism broken out in 
the great Church Catholic, not the Catholic spirit ? 
Let us combine with our friends, who are rising 
in Eoine and in the East, for a great Catholic 
reformation, under which local errors shall be 
eliminated from each and every part. "We have 
called each other hard names long enough. A 
family is an organic unit still, though the brothers 
are at sword's point ; for God made the unity, and 



ANGLICAN CHUECH NOT PEOTESTANT. 39 

human passion cannot break it. We have tried 
hate for each other long enough. How much 
have we gained by calling Rome Anti-Christ, and 
how much has she gained by calling us heretics ? 
It is high time we tried something else. Silence 
in the household, and peace ! and let us see 
calmly what the matter is. The Catholic ISTation- 
al Churches have a common basis of unity. Prot- 
estantism has none. And surely we have none 
with Protestantism. Of all places the Catholic 
Church is the last for the narrow, bigoted spirit 
of sectarianism. We, I say, belong to a local 
Church ; but go up upon the hill-top and look 
out. Enlarge your view. There you shall see 
others — two hundred and fifty millions — differing 
with us, alas ! in some things (but by no means 
hopelessly differing), but one with us substantially 
in the acceptance of that great creed, that great 
view of Christianity as a system, which is so dif- 
ferent from the Protestant, and which has been set 
forth by the whole Catholic Church ; one with us 
in owning allegiance to the same apostolically 
descended ministry ; one with us in admitting the 
same idea of the Church as an organic Body uni- 
ted to the Lord, Her Head, by the same baptism, 
and fed with Him at the same altar. Remember 
that "Catholic" does not mean any part. That 
ministry only is Catholic which we all agree is the 
only authoritative, namely, the Apostolic; that 
faith only is Catholic which we all agree upon in 
common ; every thing over and above is partial, 



40 THE FAILUEE OF PBOTESTANTISM. 

local, and not Catholic. Those sacraments only 
are Catholic which all agree "upon. Remember, 
then, that Rome, though a Catholic Church, is 
not the Catholic Church ; and that we, though a 
Catholic, are not the Catholic Church. Remem- 
ber that we must go deeper and broader to find 
the Catholic Church, down on to the great foun- 
dation where we all three stand ; down out of the 
differences between the brothers and on to the 
unity of the family. Brethren, just there is the 
ground upon which we stand as Catholics ; not as 
Romanists, not as Creeks, no longer as mere An- 
glicans, still less as local " Episcopalians," but in 
harmony with our great fundamentals, our minis- 
try, our faith, and our sacraments, as Catholics. 
Remember that there is something more vast, 
longer in time, and larger in space, than the 
" Episcopal Church " so called ; that our Church 
as a national body must be in subordination to 
the great authoritative Catholic Church — its views 
in subordination to Her greater views. Remem- 
ber that only that doctrine is binding upon us all 
which the whole Church, with which the Lord 
promised to be, has set forth ; and those practices 
and that ritual which are sympathetic, not with 
those who hate our fundamental principles, but, 
on the other hand, with whatever has been uni- 
versal in the Church Catholic; and are sym- 
pathetic not with that mere intellectual presence 
of Christ which Protestantism upholds, but with 



ANGLICAN CHUECH NOT PEOTESTANT. 41 

that real and actual presence of Christ, which the 
Church has claimed and set forth to the world 
through all ages, and which the Lord Christ 
promised to His Church, and gave when He said, 
" This is my body." 



Ill 



THE ANGLICAN CHURCH FUNDAMEN- 
TALLY DIFFERENT FROM THE PROT- 
ESTANT SECTS. 

" The Church of the Living God."— 1 Tim. iii. 15. 

It is the popular impression that the Anglican 
Church, took Her rise about three hundred years 
ago, in the days of King Henry the Eighth. She 
is believed to have been a creature of the Refor- 
mation, and is therefore regarded as one of the 
great sisterhood of the Protestant sects. She is 
looked upon as agreeing with those sects in all 
fundamental respects, and differing merely on 
subordinate points. It is supposed that, to a 
Protestant foundation, She merely superadds such 
matters of taste as written prayers instead of ex- 
temporaneous, the observance of certain festivals 
and fasts, the use of clerical garments, a preference 
for Gothic architecture, and for a ministry in the 
three orders of Bishop, Priest, and Deacon. To 
the inquiry, How the Church differs from tha 
Protestant denominations about her ? such points 
as the above-mentioned would be specified in re- 



COMPROMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. 43 

ply. It is not at all imagined that fundamentally 
we are not with, the Protestant, but with, the great 
Catholic world. It is not at all imagined that the 
difference between us and all Protestant bodies is 
not superficial, but radical and irreconcilable. 

But, Brethren, there are certain signs of the 
times that are very noteworthy. "Why is it that, as 
the Protestant denominations are mutually draw- 
ing together, and seeking coalescence in union 
meetings and the interchange of pulpits, our 
Church stands aloof from the movement ? Why 
is it, that if any of our Clergy, however few, 
coquet with the movement, the great body of our 
communicants, both lay and clerical, rise in in- 
dignation ? Why is it, too, that, as this mutual 
gravitation is taking place among the systems of 
Protestantism, there is, on the other hand, a 
counter-movement springing up in each of the 
three great parts of the Catholic world — Greek, 
Anglican, and Poman — under which they are 
looking with kindlier eye upon each other, if not 
actually drawing into closer sympathy? That 
there are these two mighty clusterings it were 
folly to ignore. How shall we account for them ? 
Is it not possible that, as the storm of the Refor- 
mation is subsiding, natural sympathies, springing 
out of fundamental agreement, are rising to re- 
sume their sway ? 

At any rate, here are two popular misappre- 
hensions touching our Church, viz. : — first, as to 
Her origin, and secondly, as to Her position rela- 



44 THE FA1LUKE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

tively to the Protestant denominations. It is to 
these two points that I shall direct my remarks 
this evening. In all fundamental respects our 
Church is neither recent, nor is She Protestant in 
the popular acceptation of that term. I do not, 
of course, deny that She protests against certain 
eiTors that have grown up in a territorial portion 
of the great Catholic body of which She is a part ; 
but what I mainly propose to show is, not in what 
respect She differs from Rome, but in what respect 
She differs from all the Protestant denominations 
taken together: and, furthermore, to show that 
the difference between Her and them is so radical, 
that any compromise between the two is a logical 
impossibility. 

In the last three hundred years theological 

o CD 

matters have become confused by a mass of doc- 
trinal detail ; and it is not at all strange that, in 
the confusion, the ordinary mind should lose sight 
of the few main points that, after all, really cause 
us to part asunder. It is well, therefore, to with- 
draw at times into a calm distance where the de- 
tails shall disappear from the vision, and the main 
distinctions come boldly out to view. Permit me, 
Beloved, for the sake of brevity, to call the system 
to which we adhere by the nanae under which it 
is known among us, viz., " The Church ; " and to 
call the bodies collectively, who agree with us in 
so far as we protest against Romish errors, but 
who differ with us in so far as we Churchmen 
hold with Pome to the great underlying truths of 



COMPEOMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. 45 

the Catholic Church, by the title of " The De- 
nominations," or " The Protestant Sects." 

Before I proceed to our first head, namely, 
The Origin of the Church, let me ask you to re- 
call sundry matters which are patent to the eye, 
in which the Church differs from the Denomina- 
tions ; for instance, the internal structure of our 
houses of worship, the arrangement of our chan- 
cels, so different from the ordinary Protestant 
plan of pulpit, with sofa behind and Commun- 
ion-Table below, the constitution of our ministry 
in three orders, the fact that we have no revivals, 
etc. And to ask you whether all this, and more, 
ought not at least to raise a suspicion, before we 
commence, that there must be, underneath, some 
radical variance between the two systems. Can 
it be that two systems, so differing to the eye, are 
fundamentally at one with each other ? Let us 
see. I proceed, then, to strike the clear, distin- 
guishing note of the Church. 

I. When did the Church arise ? In order to 
see that She did not take Her origin at the same 
time with the sects, in the days of King Henry 
VIII., permit me to give a brief history of the 
Church Catholic from the first. 

The Holy Apostles did not separate and go 
forth to plant the Church in all the world imme- 
diately after the Ascension of our Lord. The 
popular impression is that they did. But if you 
will turn to your New Testament, you will find 
that the Twelve remained residing at Jerusalem 



46 THE FAILUEE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

for twenty years after that event. During this 
period tliey preached to Jews, not to Gentiles. 
The Grecians spoken of in the sixth chapter of 
the Acts, were not Gentiles ; they were Jews who 
spoke the Greek tongue. During this long period 
of twenty years, the adherents of Christ continued 
to be members of the Jewish Church, superadding 
Christian observances in their own gatherings. 
Meantime, a model form of the Christian Church 
grew up in Jerusalem under the combined hands 
of the Apostles, with Ministry, the Sacraments, 
the Faith, and a regular Form of Worship. The 
Liturgy was not committed to writing, but was 
memorized. 

Some years after the Ascension, the conver- 
sion of St. Paul occurred ; and it was toward the 
latter part of the above-mentioned period of twen- 
ty years, that he went forth into Asia Minor, and 
preached not only to Jews resident there, but also 
to Gentiles. This gathering of Gentiles as well 
as Jews into Christianity, precipitated a crisis, 
both in the action of the Apostles and in the 
career of the Church ; for, in the new bodies of 
converts which St. Paul gathered, there speedily 
arose a contention. The Jewish converts insisted 
that the Gentile converts, in addition to their 
Christian duties, should comply with the require- 
ments of the Mosaic ritual law. It was held that 
that law had been given in all its minutiae by God 
Himself, and that all who believed in the true God 
must, of course, obey it. At last St. Paul goes 



COMPBOMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. 47 

down to Jerusalem, where the other Apostles 
were living, that this question (which, you will 
observe, was one of the gravest importance) might 
be settled by them. The Council of Jerusalem, 
an account of which is in the fifteenth chapter of 
the Acts, met, and decided the matter. The vir- 
tual conclusion reached was this, viz. : that the 
whole Jewish form of the Church had, after all, 
been fulfilled by the Life, Death, Resurrection, 
and Ascension of our T^ord ; that it no longer had 
any real existence ; and that the Christian form 
of the Church had taken its place. This occurred 
about the year 50 or 52. Thus, it was not till 
twenty years after the Ascension that the Apostles, 
arousing to their newly-seen responsibilities, sepa- 
rated, and went forth to their great work of plant- 
ing the Church Catholic in all the world. 

The Church which they planted was identical 
everywhere, from Spain and England in the West, 
to Syria in the East ; — identical in its Ministry, its 
Form of Government, its Sacraments, its Faith, 
and Liturgical mode of "Worship. It is to be 
borne in mind that the Apostles, having once 
separated to this work, never afterward met to- 
gether again for consultation. And yet such was 
the Church they planted. At the end of the first 
century, and in the beginning of the second, it 
rears itself everywhere before us as a vast visible 
body. Everywhere it has its Bishops, Priests, 
and Deacons ; its Liturgies/* its Creed, its Chan- 

* It should be noted that the Apostles did not leave only one 



48 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

eels, its Altars, its Festivals and Fasts, and its 
Sacraments. Everywhere its Bishops are the 
only persons empowered to ordain to the Minis- 
try. How happens it that the Apostles, who 
never afterward met together, should yet have 
planted a Church identical in every main point 
all over Europe, Civilized Asia, and Africa ? 
The fact is, they each and all carried away in 
their minds the model form which had during 
the twenty years grown up under their combined 
hands in Jerusalem ; and that they, each and all, 
planted the Church Catholic everywhere in gen- 
eral accordance with that model form. 

But what, furthermore, was the condition of 
this Church Catholic ? Everywhere it was One ; 
but the Church in each nation was independent 
of the Church in any other nation ; could ordain 
or discipline Her own clergy ; could make Her 
own Canon Laws and arrange Her Liturgy in the 
vernacular of Her own people. When a man 
moved from Italy to Spain, or from Egypt to 
Greece or to England, he only moved out of one 
National Branch into another of the same Church 
Catholic. Thus like some vast banyan-tree the 
Church was one organism, but with an indepen- 

form of Liturgy behind them in the Universal Church, nor yet 
twelve different forms ; but, strange to say, four forms. These 
forms contained nearly identical parts, but differed in the arrange- 
ment of those parts ; one arrangement prevailing in Syria and the 
East, the second in Egypt and Northeastern Africa, the third in 
Italy and Northwestern Africa, and the fourth in Asia Minor, 
Gaul, and Britain. 



COMPEOMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. 49 

dent trunk in each country. Her condition was 
analogous, indeed, to that of the United States. 
Rhode Island, for instance, is independent of New 
York. It can make its own laws and elect its 
own officers without dictation from the Governor 
and Legislature of New York; and yet both 
States are a part of one Country. There are local 
peculiarities in each, but the same general charac- 
teristics. 

Now, Apostles and apostolic men planted the 
Church Catholic in Rome, in Thessaly, in Gaul, 
in Egypt, in Britain. The National Branch of 
the Catholic Church planted in Britain in the 
first century was, in a certain sense, independent 
of the National Branch of the Church Catholic 
that was in Borne, and was its peer ; less in 
wealth, less in influence, less in the mental ability 
of its Clergy perhaps, but endowed with the self- 
same rights.* This mutual independence of the 
National parts of the Catholic Church lasted for 
centuries after the Apostolic days. But at last, 
about the seventh century, the National Branch 

* When Gregory I., Bishop of Rome a. d. 596, sent Augustine 
to England, the latter sought to bring the British Bishops into 
subjection to the Bishop of Rome. A Conference was at length 
held, at which Dunod, a Bishop, speaking in behalf of his brethren, 
returned the following reply to St. Augustine, viz. : " We are bound 
to serve the Church of God ; and the Bishop of Rome, and every 
godly Christian, as far as helping them in offices of love and 
charity ; this service we are ready to pay ; but more than this I do 
not know to be due to him or any other. We have a Primate of 
our own, who is to oversee us under God, and to keep us in the 
way of spiritual life." 
3 



50 THE FAILUEE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

of the Church in Rome began to usurp power over 
its neighbors in the West of Europe, to take away 
their independence, to fix its own laws, worship, 
customs, and officers upon them. Novel doctrines 
began also to grow up in Rome, superadding them- 
selves to Her Catholic system. And in due time 
She spread those doctrines also through the Na- 
tional Branches She had subjugated. She threw 
Her yoke upon the Catholic Church in England. 
She tried to throw Pier yoke also upon the numer- 
ous National Branches in the Eastern part of 
Europe ; but never succeeded in this attempt. In 
England, however, as I have said, after a brave 
struggle on the part of the British Bishops, She 
succeeded ; and for several centuries the Catholic 
Church in England, though of right independent, 
autonomic, was in the same position under Rome 
that Rhode Island would be, if for a while its 
large, wealthy, and powerful neighbor, New York, 
should reduce it to dependency, give it its laws, 
its judges, and other officers. 

But in Henry the Eighth's time the National 
Branch of the Catholic Church in England suc- 
ceeded in throwing off the yoke of Rome, and 
stood once more independent, reinstated in Her 
original position, rehabilitated with the rights 
which, a few centuries before, She had lost. It is 
immaterial whether the motives of Henry were 
conscientious or not ; God maketh the wrath of 
the wicked to praise Him, and Henry's quarrel 



COMPBOMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. 51 

with Clement was the subjugated Church's oppor- 
tunity in England. 

Using Her regained rights^ Her clergy and 
laity pruned and translated Her liturgy, reformed 
Her customs, and abolished from Her the novel 
and Romish doctrines that had been temporarily 
added to Her Catholic system. She remained 
still the same old National Branch of the Church 
that had come down in England from the Apostles' 
days ; She had simply removed from Her Catholic 
structure the incrustations of Romish errors. Sup- 
pose a free man had, at one period of his life, been 
enslaved by a powerful neighbor, and had subse- 
quently thrown off the yoke, why one might as 
well say that that man is not the same individual 
through it all, but that he only began to exist 
from the moment he regained his freedom, as to 
say that the Catholic Church in England took the 
origin of Her existence at the time of Henry the 
Eighth. 

Understand, that it is one thing utterly to 
destroy the National Branch of the Church Catho- 
lic in a country and construct a new Christian or- 
ganism in its place ; but it is another and a very 
different thing to take the same old Church Cath- 
olic that is found in a nation, and merely remove 
from it such novel doctrines and improper customs 
as may have grown up within it, or been forced 
upon it. The former is what was done on the 
Continent ; the latter is what was done in Eng- 
land. Thus the Continental and the English Ref- 



52 THE FAILUEE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

ormations were conducted on a different prin- 
ciple each, from the other. The one was destruc- 
tive of Catholic truth and the Catholic Church, 
the other was preservative of both. 

In the old colonial times of our country, the 
English branch of the old Catholic Church, act- 
ing according to the law of Catholic growth, put 
forth a branch into this country. And when, as 
the result of the American Revolution, England 
and America became independent nations, the 
Church in this country became, ipso facto, a na- 
tional, and independent trunk of the one Catholic 
Church in all the world. 

Alas, that the fifteen or twenty gentlemen 
who met in the general convention immediately 
after the Revolution, and at the opening of the 
independence of the American Catholic Church, 
should have left us as a heritage that unfortunate 
title " Protestant Episcopal." For, what does the 
word " Protestant " indicate to the popular mind ? 
Why, in general terms, a violent opposition to all 
that is Catholic. The word does not express, 
therefore, our attitude. For we adhere to, we 
cherish with undying fondness, much that is in 
the Romish Church which Protestantism hates 
and has abolished. "We simply protest against 
certain of Her features, so that the title " Protes- 
tant," as applied to us, does not mean the same 
as when applied to the Denominations, and the 
popular mind is misled in regard to us. Again, 
the term " Episcopal " simply refers to our Church 



COMPROMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. 53 

Government. Thus the whole title, " Protestant 
Episcopal," selects only two out of very many of 
our characteristics (and those two by no means the 
most important), and elevates them into the prom- 
inence of an exhaustive designation for the whole. 
Why, brethren, you might as well call 'New York 
an "Anti-Mormon Gubernatorial State," and 
fancy that you have thoroughly defined your Com- 
monwealth, as to dream for an instant that the 
title " Protestant Episcopal " is, ever was, or ever 
could be, a befitting name for the great American 
fraction of the One Holy Catholic Church in all 
the world. But, thank God, the fifteen or twenty 
wise gentlemen who, in the eighteenth century, 
took such action as has resulted in foisting this 
heritage of " Protestant Episcopal " as a title upon 
nearly forty vast dioceses in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, were not permitted by the Catholic Church 
elsewhere to carry out their intentions of laying 
violent hands upon the Creed itself. Thank God 
that that Creed does not read, " I believe in the 
Holy P. E. Church of the II. S. A." Thank God 
that it still reads as of old, " I believe One Catho- 
lic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one 
Baptism for the remission of sins ; and I look for 
the Resurrection of the dead, and the Life of the 
world to come." 

Thus the English Catholic Church, known as 
the Church of England, did not with the sects 
take Her origin in the Reformation. She merely 
succeeded in disenthralling herself at that stormy 



54 THE FAILUKE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

period. She is an ancient Branch of the Church 
Catholic, having a continuous life running down 
from the apostolic days to the present time ; pre- 
serving, all along, Catholic features of the Apos- 
tolic Church visible, Her Ministry, Her Faith, 
Her Sacraments, Her Seasons, Her Liturgical "Wor- 
ship ; free during the first six centuries, then en- 
slaved by Rome for a while, then striking for and 
regaining her freedom again, which She has en- 
joyed now for the last three centuries. She still 
agrees with the Roman, the Greek, the Armenian, 
and other parts of the Church in all fundamental 
Catholic respects, and differs from the Roman part, 
in respect of certain errors, which added them- 
selves to Her Catholic system in the latter part of 
the middle ages and in the year 1854. 

Thus the Church, instead of being fundamen- 
tally Protestant, that is to say, constructed on 
Protestant notions, and merely bearing a little 
about Her on Her surface that looks like the " visi- 
ble," the " priestly," the " Sacramental," and the 
" Catholic," is, on the other hand, fundamen- 
tally, and has been continuously, Catholic, while 
such Protestantism as She has is a temporary ex- 
pression, which She has been forced to put on at 
this period of Her long career, in censure of errors 
into which a portion (numerically a half, perhaps) 
of the great Body of which She is a part has fallen, 
as She trusts only temporarily. Thus you will 
see that, after all, the cause and the main object 
of Her existence is not to protest against those 



COMPEOMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. 55 

temporary errors (although she does that by the 
way), but it is the rather to continue to hold and 
to spread, as formerly, so now and to all future 
time, the great principles of the Church Yisible, 
of Catholic Truth and Apostolic Order. 

She belongs to the great Catholic Sisterhood. 
One erring sister has brought grief to the house- 
hold. But She looks upon that sister, and, as She 
marks the familiar lineaments of the family, She 
cannot hate her; She grieves over the errors. 
She looks within herself, and finds that all is not 
perfect even there; She prays for her prodigal 
Sister, and She is beginning to pray for herself 
also. Far be it from Her ever to abandon the 
family of which She is a member, and take up 
Her portion beneath the fleeting tents of a hard, 
a hostile, and a wayward tribe ! God speed the 
day when all the fair Sisters, Greek, Roman, Ar- 
menian, English, Russian, and American, shall 
abandon such mistakes as either may have fallen 
into, shall learn that no fraction can be the whole 
body, and shall stand, with arms intertwined, a 
one harmonious Catholic family once more ! 

"When the two great clusterings, Protestant 
and Catholic, shall have completed themselves, 
the one organic like an army, the other disin- 
tegrated like a mob, and the shock between the 
two shall take place, can any one doubt the issue ? 

II. I come now to the second point, viz. : The 
Anglican Church being regarded by the popular 



56 THE FAILUEE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

mind as fundamentally one of tlie Protestant 
sects. Let me recall to you what I said above, 
namely : that it is my object to set forth wherein 
it is that the Church differs in fundamental doc- 
trine from all the Denominations taken together. 
Is there the radical difference I speak of? If so, 
does it lie in the mere question of written or ex- 
temporaneous prayers, of baptism by pouring or 
by submersion, of whether or not it is Scriptural 
to baptize infants, of Church Government ? Oh 
no. These are all questions of some importance, 
but they are superficial in the comparison. Can 
we or can we not go down beneath these to some 
one point where, to start with, the difference be- 
tween the Church and the sects is so radical, that, 
after all, any subsequent compromise between the 
two is a delusion and a snare to both? If there 
be such a point, the plain man, who has little or 
no time to study into numerous and nice super- 
ficial theological distinctions, would like, of course, 
to know what it is, that he may be settled in his 
main religious position. All these differences be- 
tween the Church and the Denominations which 
are apparent to the eye, for instance, as to Church 
Government, forms of worship, observance or non- 
observance of Feasts and Fasts, Infant Baptism, 
etc., are, if I may so express it, bewildering 
branches and twigs, in which the plain man finds 
himself entangled. My point is, that these branch- 
es and twigs, in fact all the peculiarities of the 
Church, spring out of the answer to a prior ques- 



COMPBOMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. 57 

tion. If that question be decided one way, we 
are carried into the entire Churchly set of branch- 
es in doctrine and practice ; if the other way, we 
are carried into the Protestant set of branches. 
Surely it is an important point gained toward 
clearing up the complicated matter to our minds, 
and virtually disposing of a hundred-and-one sub- 
ordinate questions, if we can go down from the 
branches to the two great trunks, the Churchly 
and the Protestant, and then get back to the root, 
and see, if possible, exactly where and why it is 
that the two great trunks themselves part com- 
pany. 

Now, the great question, which in itself alone 
divides us from all Protestant sects, is the all-im- 
portant question, What is Election? This lies 
down under the surface ; but this is it. And as 
we give one or the other answer to this question, 
What is Election? so do we consistently decide 
one or the other way on all subsequent questions. 

Now, the Protestant idea is that Election is 
of individuals directly to life eternal. Thus with 
Protestants " the elect are identical with the 
finally saved.' 5 Protestant Denominations may 
differ among themselves as to the extent of Elec- 
tion, as to the limitation or universality of the 
Atonement as a potential means of salvation ; 
they may differ as to the distinctness of the 
boundaries between the elect and all others ; they 
may differ very much as to the causality of Elec- 
tion in the Divine Mind, that is to say, whether 
3* 



58 THE FAILUEE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

persons are elected by God's absolute and irre- 
spective sovereignty, or whether (as the Method- 
ists say) their election was, so to speak, influ- 
enced in the Divine Mind by their foreseen 
personal actions as free beings (God's Foreknowl- 
edge not affecting their acts, any more than one 
man's observing another's falling causes his fall) ; 
they may differ as to whether God has reprobated 
the non-elect or not; but they all agree as to 
the ideality of election ; that is to say, that it is 
of individuals, and that its immediate design is 
eternal life. And if you would test this, ask any 
Methodist, or Calvinistic Baptist, or Free-Will 
Baptist, or Orthodox Congregationalist, or Pres- 
byterian (New School or Old School, Supra-lap- 
sarian or Sub-lapsarian), " Will any of the elect 
be lost and damned?" And, unless I mistake 
very much, they will one and all say, " No ! It 
were dreadful to imagine such a thing for an in- 
stant ! " 

But the view of the Church, as expressed in 
Her prayers and offices, and homilies, and in Her 
XVIIth Article, is radically different from all 
this. And Her view gives to Her whole theology 
a different character. By reflex light it shines 
back upon Christ and upon God, and shows Them 
under a very different aspect to the world. It 
gives to Her whole presentment of Christianity a 
different cast, and it leads Her into a vastly dif- 
ferent treatment of the sinner. Do you ask why it 
is that we have no revivals? The answer is, be- 



COMPEOMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. 59 

cause of our view of Election ; they are foreign to 
our whole system; nay, destructive of it. Do 
you ask, "Why we baptize infants? The answer 
is, because of our view of Election. Do you ask, 
Why we have a ministry in three orders, Why we 
have a ritualistic form .of worship, Why our Altars 
and not ou? pulpits are the prominent objects in 
our churches? The answer is, because of our 
view of Election. What is that view? I will 
give it to you. 

The Church holds that " Christ came to intro- 
duce a new state of things on earth, a Kingdom 
of G-od ; that He came not merely to found a re- 
ligion.; not merely to make an Atonement for 
individual sinners, but to establish a Kingdom of 
which He was to be the Bang. And it was to be 
more than a Kingdom. It was to be the Church ; 
a company of men not only believing in Him but 
also baptized into His Body. And these persons, 
so blessed, were not merely to be under Him as 
their King, or instructed by Him as their Prophet, 
or reconciled through Him as their Priest, or in- 
dividually to apprehend Him as their Sacrifice ; 
but over and above all these things they were to 
be supernaturally joined to Him by a union so 
intimate, so entire and real, that it could only be 
illustrated by the union that subsists between the 
limbs of a human body and its head, or between 
a vine and the branches that form a part of it ;" * 

* The writer has taken liberties with the above extract from 
Sadler, in the way of adding to the language for greater fulness 
of expression, not in the way of altering the sense. 



60 THE FAILUKE OF PKOTESTANTISM. 

a union, I say, which, though supernatural, is 
yet real and not merely abstract; a union not 
like that which subsists between two consent- 
ing friends, but rather analogous to that which 
subsists between Adam and all who have de- 
rived their nature from him. So that Christ's 
Body Natural grows out, as it were, fey the addi- 
tion of those who are thus made one with Him, 
and becomes His Body Mystical. Christ and His 
Church Catholic are all one ; we are the branches 
and He is the whole Yine. Christ is that Stone, 
spoken of by Daniel, " Cut out -without hands 
. that became a great mountain and 
filled the whole earth." The Church holds that 
the means by which God unites separate men to 
this great Body Mystical of Christ, so that they 
are buried in Christ, is Baptism.* Baptism is 
with Her no mere form, but an amazing reality. 
She holds, therefore, that Election is into the Body 
Mystical, is into high ecclesiastical privileges on 
earth, which, if they are used rightly, will enable 
a man to reach life eternal hereafter ; but which, 

* The Holy Spirit, on the Day of Pentecost, fell not on indi- 
viduals as such, but on the Body of the Church. This indwelling 
presence of the Holy Spirit makes the Church something different 
from a mere company of, men ; makes It to be an object of faith. 
" We do not simply believe that there are persons who call them- 
selves Christians ; this is a fact which even the heathen know. 
We believe beyond this that all members of the Holy Catholic 
Church are joined together in one unseen Body by the Presence 
of the Holy Ghost," this Body being one with Christ, being His 
own Body Mystical. 



COMPEOMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. gj 

on the other hand, if they are not used rightly, 
will not insure him salvation. "While, therefore, 
the Protestant idea is that the elect are identical 
with the finally saved, the Church's idea is that 
"the elect are identical with the baptized ;" that 
Election has, therefore, only mediate and not im- 
mediate reference to everlasting salvation, since 
some of the Baptized will be saved and some will 
not. 

For we claim that God's great Church is one 
and continuous, not merely from Christ, but from 
the Fall itself down to the present time ; that it 
was first Patriarchal in form, then Jewish, and 
finally Christian ; that the scheme of Election (if 
I may be permitted to use such a phrase) was 
adopted at the Call of Abraham ; that the Jews 
were God's elect people, some of them making 
their calling and election sure by using their high 
ecclesiastical privileges and helps aright, while 
others failed to do so, and failed, therefore, of the 
ultimate though not immediate end of their elec- 
tion. We claim that, when God changed the form 
of His Church visible, from Jewish to Christian, 
from National to Catholic, He did not change 
His idea of Election. The Aaronic ministry was 
changed to the Apostolic ; the bloody features of 
the Church's Altar were stricken out, leaving only 
the bread and wine,* " the meat-offering and the 

* The altar became a new power under the hand of Christ, for 
He gave to it His Real Presence, with which it had never been 
endowed before. 



62 THE FAILUKE OF PROTESTANTISM 

drink-offering ; " circumcision was changed to bap- 
tism ; but God's Elect were still the members of 
His Church, good, bad, and indifferent. "We claim 
that, as in Jewish times, so now, God calls upon 
His Elect, each and all, to make their Election 
sure by using their privileges and divinely-given 
helps in the Church aright ; we claim that as the 
Jews, good, bad, and indifferent, were addressed 
as the Elect, so likewise the Apostles addressed 
all the members of the Ephesian, the Corinthian, 
the Roman, the Philippian and the Colossian 
Church, good, bad, and indifferent, as the Elect ; 
and furthermore, that the Bible warns us, that 
every individual branch in Christ that beareth 
not fruit, although in Christ, although baptized 
into His Body, although of the Elect, will be cut 
off eventually and not attain to salvation. We 
claim, therefore, that the Church, the great Catho- 
lic Body Mystical, the divinely-given means of as- 
sistance, is a most important factor, bearing upon 
the salvation of souls; important because to be 
grafted into it by baptism is to be grafted into 
Christ ; important, from the aids it renders the 
sinner by its Rites, Ordinances, Ministry, and 
Sacraments, as he toils along his hard way toward 
salvation. "With us, therefore, Election is gen- 
eric;* the Election is the body of the Church 

* " Furthermore," says the XVIIth Article, " we must receive 
God's promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in 
Holy Scripture." Generally, i. e. not, "For the most part," but, 
as opposed to particularly or individually ; not usually, but uni- 



COMPROMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. g3 

Catholic. "With the Protestant sects, Election is 
individual. 

You sometimes hear the phrase, ".No church 
without a Bishop." I do not mean to deny this. 
But I would direct your attention away from this 
as a superficial point, and beneath it to this ques- 
tion of Election, as after all the Articulus jEccle- 
sice stantis vel cadentis. 

Now, whichever side is right — and I do not 
propose to discuss this point — you cannot fail to 
perceive at once that here is a very radical differ- 
ence between the two ; a difference in accordance 
with which a hundred and one subsequent ques- 
tions are decided — the question of the ministry, 
the question of the sacraments, the entire question 
of the Church Yisible. For, if Election be of sep- 
arate individuals to life eternal, irrespective of 
any ecclesiastical means, what do you want of a 
great Yisible Church Catholic on earth, with its 
regular Apostolic Ministry, with its Rites, with 
its identical Life running all the way through 
time, God-given and Divine ? That Church dis- 
appears at once from your necessities. She is no 
longer needed with Her baptism as a medium of 
union between the Sinner and Christ, and Her 
Eucharist as a life-nourisher. But, on the con- 
trary, the idea of a Church invisible, consisting 
of all holy persons in all denominations, and even 

versally, or better, generically ; that is to say, as concerning classes 
of persons. The word employed in the Latin form of the Article 
is generaliter, not plerumque. 



64 THE FAILUEE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

out of them, takes Her place. I say "out of 
them ; " f6r Holy Baptism is either what I have 
designated it, an amazing reality, or else it is 
nothing. Under the Protestant idea of Elec- 
tion it becomes immaterial to the individual, ex- 
cept from policy or taste's sake, what form of 
Church organization he adopts. For, at any rate, 
he is elected, aside from any earthly appliances, 
directly to salvation. If the Methodists deny 
this, then with them Election amounts to nothing 
at all ; there is no such thing as Election. But 
alas for this ; the whole Bible, Old and New Tes- 
tament, is full of an Election, a selection of some 
kind. "While to us the whole earthly appliance 
of the Church is no mere matter of taste, but is 
divinely given as the best possible means for 
man's assistance and is therefore sacred ; to the 
Protestant a visible form of the Church becomes 
a matter of mere human propriety. In his in- 
tense individualism, all organizations as Protes- 
tant corporate bodies are logically unnecessary. 
It becomes immaterial whether he has the Apos- 
tolic line of ministerial succession or not. All 
that is really wanted is for some one, whether or- 
dained at all or not makes no difference, to tell 
the sinner " to come to Christ " in some indefinite 
way. If he is elect, he will be saved ; if he is not 
elect, all the Church Catholics, and all the di- 
vinely-given Ministries and Sacraments in the 
world will not mend the matter a whit for him. 
Thus the whole Protestant system of individual- 



COMPEOMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. 65 

ism, with its destruction of the Clinrcli and Her 
Ministry and Rites and Ways, takes the place of 
the great Catholic idea of the organic Church, as 
a part of God's plan wrought out in Christ to 
help the sinner in making his calling and election 
sure. With us the Church comes in as a medium 
of union with Christ ; with the Protestant as an 
interference. 

For fifteen hundred years after Christ there 
had been four factors in the scheme of salvation, 
viz. : God, the God-man Christ, His Body Mys- 
tical or Church, and the sinner. The sinner 
was, by baptism, grafted into the Body Mystical 
or Church, and thus made one with Christ; 
and by the Holy Eucharist fed with Him ; and 
being one with the Son, was made one with the 
Father also. For first, Father and Son are one ; 
second, God and Man are one in Christ ; third, 
Christ and His Church are one ; and lastly, the 
Sinner becomes one with the whole by the uni- 
ting element of baptism. But at the Reforma- 
tion, Protestantism, consistent with its idea of 
individual Election to eternal life, struck out the 
Church; and this was exactly what our Church 
did not do. With that third factor gone, there 
was at once a gap between the sinner and Christ. 
How, now, was the sinner to be made one with 
Christ ? Why, Protestantism substituted the pro- 
cess of individual experiencing of religion with 
the whole revival system ; and so sought to bridge 
the gap between each separate individual and 



G6 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

Christ. And when, without the actual sacra- 
mental bands, he falls away, they are forced to 
bring to bear the machinery again for " a revival 
of religion in his heart." 

Now, the question is not before us, whether 
the sinner can gain, by that process, the real, the 
actual, though supernatural, union with Christ, 
whereby " the twain become one flesh ; " or 
whether it is only that abstract union of consent, 
which exists between friend and friend. Better 
the latter, than nothing at all. But there is an- 
other very important point which is before us, 
and that is the logical effect of this system upon 
sacraments. For, if the individual can either 
make himself, or become one with Christ under 
that process, you will see that the importance of 
baptism at once sinks away ; because the main 
work of uniting the sinner to Christ has all been 
done without it, and prior to it ; and baptism, as 
a subsequent rite, sinks to a mere form, simply 
to mark distinction between one set of men and 
another ; a form, which the highly logical society 
of Quakers get along very well without. Again, 
if the individual can bridge the gap and become 
one with Christ, regardless of the Body Mystical, 
what does he want of the Holy Communion as a 
visible means to supply him with the strengthen- 
ing sustenance of Christ's nature ? He can feed 
directly upon Christ, all in the way of immedia- 
tion, all in the way of nature, not of mediation ; 
all in the way of Rationalism, not of Christianity. 



COMPKOMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. 07 

For I do not desire, in these solemn and vital 
questions, to disguise what I mean. Strike out 
the Sacraments, strike out the Church. Catholic as 
Christ's Body Mystical, as the Outward Means of 
conveying Inward Graces; strike out the Apos- 
tolic Ministry, and you have struck a fatal blow 
at the whole doctrine of Mediation between man 
and God. You have sounded the trumpet for 
Immediation. Tou do not, as some excellent 
people fancy, start an issue between Catholic 
Christianity and a merely spiritual kind of Chris- 
tianity. Your issue is nothing short of the life or 
eventual death of Christianity itself. What does 
the man want, I repeat, of the Holy Eucharist, 
except as a mere memorial to quicken a memory 
of a past tragedy on Calvary? A result which 
preaching, or even his own meditations before a 
picture, or better, a crucifix, could do as well. 

The fact is, with the striking out of the Church, 
you have even such relics of what is Churchly as 
are retained by Protestantism, to wit, its sacra- 
ments, reduced to mere ordinances — to forms of 
not very much importance after all, and you have 
any specified line of ministry to administer those 
sacraments, a mere impertinence between the sin- 
ner and God. Away with your Apostolic Minis- 
try then ! says Protestantism ; it is no more valid 
than any other ! And Protestantism is entirely 
logical, too, when it says so. Away with your 
altars, says the great preacher of Brooklyn ; the 
private Christian layman can set up bread and 



gg THE FAILUEE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

wine before him in his closet, and gazing upon it 
can make as valid a Eucharist! and the great 
preacher is logical and loyal to the principles of 
Protestantism when he says so. Away with min- 
isterial baptism, say the Se-Baptists ; let the lay- 
man apply the water to himself, and it is as valid 
a baptism ! 

But, did Christ solemnly ordain rites of com- 
parative unimportance, and found a ministry, 
promising to be with it to the end of the world, 
the breaking up or continuance of which was a 
matter of small moment % If not, then there must 
be something wrong in the point that lies behind 
and below, that involves all such subsequent 
destruction. Once restore, however, the lost fac- 
tor of the Church Catholic, as God's appointed 
Outward Means of inward graces, and sacraments 
and ministry all naturally take their places as 
valuable, nay, as indispensable gifts to mankind. 

IsTow, simply in itself considered, what indeed 
is the difference whether we have a ministry in 
three orders or in one ? It would seem to be a 
very small affair either way. And the Church, 
which stands stiffly for Her Bishops, and refuses 
to recognize other lines of ministry, would appear 
to be making a vast deal out of a very unessential 
matter. But when we consider that there is some- 
thing beneath this question of the Ministry, which 
is really, in itself, of vast importance, and that out 
of it the question of the Apostolic Ministry grows, 
then the fact, whether or not we are to preserve 



COMPEOMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. 69 

that ministry, mounts logically into vast impor- 
tance. Election, and whether it is of the individ- 
ual to eternal life, or whether it is of the individ- 
ual into a great system .arranged by God Himself, 
to be, on the whole, the best possible aid to free 
mortals in struggling toward salvation, is a matter 
of the utmost importance to dying souls. It is 
nothing short of two different modes of salvation 
through Christ, which are presented to the world ; 
the one the individual mode, leaping over the 
Church, the other the churchly mode ; two dif- 
ferent modes, each logically destructive of the 
other. It is nothing short of two different Christs, 
one with a Body Mystical on earth, the other 
without it ; and finally, two different Gods that 
are presented to the world. For in its last result 
the Protestant God is essentially the God of the 
Sabellian Heresy. 

Thus the Apostolic Ministry, as a vital part of 
that system arranged by God, to be the best help for 
the sinner in striving to make his calling and elec- 
tion sure, is grounded and rooted in the doctrine 
of Election. You cannot pull up a tree without 
tearing up the earth all around it. The ministry, 
considered merely in itself, may be nothing ; the 
sacraments, and whether they are administered by 
a divinely authorized set of men or not, may be 
nothing in themselves ; but in their vital connec- 
tion with Election, with that subject which gives 
a differing aspect to the whole Christianity which 
is preached, the Ministry and Sacraments mount, 



70 THE FAILUKE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

I repeat, into questions of the gravest importance. 
It is not strange, it is entirely logical and consist- 
ent, that the Protestant sects, with their view of 
individual Election, should set lightly by any 
given line of ministry, and be perfectly willing to 
interchange pulpits indiscriminately. But those 
among us who tamper with the Ministry and 
Sacraments of the Church, who set lightly by 
them, are tampering with, nay, they are upheav- 
ing and tearing to % pieces the whole ground, and 
altering the entire aspect of Christianity as pre- 
sented to the sinner and to the world, by the 
Church. 

You will perceive, then, my friends, that 
whichever view is right, the Protestant view of 
Election is, at any rate, absolutely destructive of 
the whole Church system to which we hold ; that 
as we hold to the other view, it naturally carries 
us into different conclusions from the Protestant, 
touching the Ministry, the Sacraments, all the 
rites and ways, nay the very existence itself of the 
Church Yisible; and that, while all the sects, 
however differing among themselves on unessen- 
tial points, are fundamentally at one among them- 
selves, we are separated from them all at the very 
start by a gulf, not only enormously wide, but 
enormously deep, and logically incapable of being 
bridged. 

However we may agree with the sects in pro- 
testing against certain errors peculiar to Pome, we 
hold that, at any rate, that fact is not the test by 



COMPEOMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. ft 

which we should be classified. For we still main- 
tain, that notwithstanding the unfortunate name 
of " Protestant Episcopal," fixed upon us as an 
incubus by the notion of a dozen or two gentle- 
men (to whom, indeed, we are indebted, under 
God, for very much, for which we are thankful), 
about the beginning of this century, when the 
Church in America was marvellously small, we 
still maintain, I say, that notwithstanding this, we 
are not one of the sects, that we never have left 
the great body of the Catholic Church, and that, 
God helping us, we never will. But that ever, as 
in the past so in the future, the voice of the 
Churchman shall be raised in the Creed, " I Be- 
lieve One Catholic and Apostolic Church." 

Even at the risk of exhausting your patience, 
I ask a few more moments of your attention for a 
word of warning and of counsel. 

It takes no prophetic eye to see that the long 
night which closed upon the world at the sixteenth 
century, the long night of mere religious negation, 
is about over, and that the dawn of religious 
affirmation, of positive assertion, is breaking again 
upon the world. Earnest men, tired of being 
longer told what they shall protest against, what 
they shall not believe, are rising by thousands 
with the demand upon their lips, " Tell me what 
I shall believe ! " "We have reached the opening 
of a tremendous religious crisis in America. A 
new type of man is coming up with demands 
other than those born of the mountains of 



72 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

Switzerland and Scotland. "We are beginning 
to feel all round beneath us, as a people, tlie 
ripplings of a mighty tidal wave, which, lifting 
us, is about to tear our anchors up from the 
ground of Protestantism, and, if we are not care- 
ful, to sweep us en masse into Romanism. The 
reaction has already begun in Boston. How 
kindly they are beginning to look upon Rome at 
the spot where all great movements of American 
mind begin ! If you would know which way the 
storm is going to blow, look at the straws in Bos- 
ton. The fact is, the position of Protestantism is 
thoroughly undermined all round about us, and 
the wary old man of the Vatican knows it. Those 
two articles in the Atlantic Monthly breathe un- 
consciously the spirit of prophecy. How has all 
this* come to pass I Thus : for nearly a century, 
now, the cry that has been going up from the 
laity of all denominations to the pulpit is, " Give 
us no doctrinal sermons ; we simply w r ant practi- 
cal sermons, sermons that will touch the heart." 
And what has been the result ? Why, through- 
out this broad land the people everywhere are left 
to-day without a positive faith of any kind. Sev- 
enty years ago, men still believed something ; you 
would not have found, then, an orthodox Con- 
gregationalist exchanging pulpits wdth a Unita- 
rian, nor a Presbyterian with a Methodist. Fifty 
years ago you would not have found a Baptist 
coquetting with a Unitarian. Nay, twenty years 
ago the high Unitarian even shut his pulpit-door 
against the Parkerite. But tem/pora mutantur. 



COMPROMISE WITH SECTS IMPOSSIBLE. 73 

For the want of positive doctrinal teaching (and 
Protestantism is in its essence destructive of it, it 
has all come naturally to pass), positive Christian 
faith is banished from the land. The faith of 
America to-day is summed up in this one article, 
" I believe it is not necessary to believe any thing 
definite." Now, you may hold the mind of man 
in the mass at that point for a while, but not 
long. It is, after all, the nature of the human 
mind to crave something positive. It will at last 
react, with a violence of oscillation proportioned 
to the distance and height to which you have 
drawn it away. 

How stands, then, our beloved country to-day ? 
Why, thus : first, without any definite faith, and 
unequipped with an argument why it should not 
believe this theological point, and why it should 
believe that ; and, secondly, with simply a violent 
prejudice against any thing that is Romish. Now, 
when Rome makes a convert, she teaches that 
convert what to believe and why to believe it. 
And when against American Protestantism, thus 
emptied of positive faith, unsupplied with theo- 
logical arguments, and shielded only with brittle 
prejudices, you bring to bear the positive faith 
and arguments of Rome, it is like smiting a hol- 
low globe of glass with a boulder of rock. It is 
the easiest of all things to break down mere un- 
informed prejudice. 

Now, this land, I take it, does not want 
Romish errors ; but it is rising hungry for a posi- 
4 



74 THE FAILUEE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

tive faith. Christian union meetings, to make 
headway against Rome, are not the cure of the 
great disease of the day. That disease can only 
be met by a positive faith. 

Our Church, as a national branch of the great 
Church Catholic, is not founded upon negations. 
She is founded upon affirmations. She, as well 
as Rome, has a positive faith, and not only posi- 
tive, but clear of any Romish errors. And, un- 
less we rouse to the danger of the day, and with 
our positive faith go forth to take this land, noth- 
ing will save it from Roman Catholicism. Said 
that remarkable seer, De Tocqueville, years ago, 
of us, " America will, sooner or later, lie prostrate, 
the easy captive of Rome ; because regulars al- 
ways beat the militia." 

Our duty as loyal children of the Church is 
plain. "We have no need, as we move among the. 
.denominations, to apologize for our Fair Mother. 
Too much of this, alas, already ! Too much of 
the obsequious to our inferiors ! " He who ex- 
cuses, accuses," and but confirms disesteem, in- 
stead of commanding respect. We are not almost 
like the denominations, and, therefore, to be tol- 
erated by them in our peculiarities of written 
prayers and vested clergy. We are Catholic, and 
fundamentally different. As you go forth, then, 
into the world as sons and daughters of the 
Church, sound no uncertain trumpet, but let your 
motto be, I Believe in One, Holt, Catholic 
and Apostolio Church. 



IV. 

PROTESTANTISM LOGICALLY DESTRUC- 
TIVE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

And many false Prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. — 
St. Matt. xxiv. 11. 

The 'New Testament is full of warnings against 
subtle attacks that were to be made in subsequent 
times upon Christianity. We are not only told 
that some of these attacks would be made by open 
enemies, but that there would be others made by 
avowed friends. And we are forewarned that 
the latter would be of such nature as to deceive 
even the elect were it possible. It is our distinct 
charge that Protestantism is one of the latter class 
of attacks. Its adherents are, of course, friends 
of Christ; but they are mistaken friends; they 
know not what they do. It is our warning that 
the sons and daughters of the Church avoid all 
Protestant religious systems. 

We bring forward an additional charge to-day, 
viz., that wherever you. meet with a region of coun- 
try that has been burned over and over again with 
the fires of " Revivalism," there an almost utter 



76 THE FAILUEE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

and very general indifference to religion eventual- 
ly supervenes. We look not so mucli at the im- 
mediate results of the revival system in making 
this additional charge ; they are deceptive. But 
we look to the final fruits. The whole system is 
a stupendous blunder. But even the immediate 
results are not to be passed over lightly. 

Take the great revival of 1859-'60 in Ireland. 
What is the testimony of the Rev. Isaac Nelson, a 
Presbyterian minister in Belfast ? He frankly says, 
" The revival was made to rest for its reality on cer- 
tain extraordinary conversions, which have since 
proved false and wicked ; the consequence being an 
immensely increased immorality in Ulster. ]STow," 
he says, " will Dr. McCorle meet us on this asser- 
tion, or put it to the test of statistics ? We know he 
will not ; he dare not. The morality of the Pres- 
byterian people has been ruined by the Pevival." 
Such, my brethren, was the immediate result, one 
of the Revivalists himself being the judge. 

Let me give you another extract concerning 
that same Revival ; it is this, viz., " Many of the 
earlier Revivalists, whose mental calibre could not 
withstand the excitement of the movement, have 
found a permanent home in lunatic asylums ; 
while multitudes of others, puffed up with spirit- 
ual pride, have fallen into worse diseases than that 
of the mind. Many who, three years ago, were 
distinguished as Revivalist preachers of the purest 
and most sanctified kind, are now drunkards, 
thieves, and immoral livers ; and one to our cer- 



PROTESTANTISM DESTROYS CHRISTIANITY. 77 

tain knowledge is now lying in prison, charged 
with being concerned in a late cowardly and bar- 
barous murder. Since the Revival began seduc- 
tion has prevailed to an extent never known be- 
fore, as the large increase in the number of ille- 
gitimate children fully proves. Has drunkenness 
or immorality decreased in the district where it 
chiefly prevailed ? The very contrary is the fact. 
Judged therefore by its results, the Revival move- 
ment of 1859-'60 must be considered not as ' a re- 
freshing stream of God's grace,' as some have not 
hesitated profanely to call it, but as a withering 
blight which has parched the ground which it 
seemed to refresh, and has left behind it fruits 
the full bitterness of which will never be truly 
known till the day of doom." 

But I do not intend in this sermon to dwell at 
all upon this point of the searing effect of Protes- 
tant Revivals. I merely allude to it, and return 
to one of the main charges, viz. : that wherever 
the fundamental principles of Protestantism have 
taken deep root in the mind of a thoughtful peo- 
ple, there, after a number of generations, infidelity 
prevails to a very general — to an alarming extent. 
The charge is, that the logical conclusion of the 
fundamental principles of Protestantism is Ration- 
alism, and that the historical issue in the case of 
Germany, Switzerland, America, and other Prot- 
estant lands, substantiates the logical anticipa- 
tion. 

You perceive at once the seriousness of this 



78 THE FAILUKE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

indictment. If it is true, then Protestantism is 
what I have charged it to be, a heresy. If it is 
trne, it is not a subject to be provoked about ; it 
is a matter to be grieved over ; for multitudes of 
good men are identified with Protestantism. If 
it is true, Protestantism should be avoided by every 
one who loves his brother-man, and the cause of 
our Blessed Saviour. Its houses of worship should 
never be entered by the sons and daughters of the 
Church. If it is not true, then it is for Protes- 
tants to let us know why, which they have es- 
sayed but failed to do hitherto. If it is true, it is 
something you ought to know and not to turn 
aside from. If it is true, it is criminal for the 
Christian to ignore it. It is too important a 
charge to be prejudged, and too important to be 
pushed aside because it is an unpleasant subject. 
If individuals will not hear, the world is hearing, 
and will hear, and will decide the issue. 

There are two counts, then, in the indictment, 
which I dwell on this morning : First, that, as a 
fact, infidelity prevails very widely in lands which 
once were Protestant. Secondly, that this is be- 
cause the logical issue of the Protestant dogma is 
nationalism. 

Let us consider the first count. Permit me to 
read to you a little " Account of Religion in Ge- 
neva, Switzerland." It is written by a Protestant 
minister, and is as follows, viz. : 

"The statements made by Mr. J. "Wright, a 
Unitarian, are, alas, too true ! — viz., that the sue- 



PEOTESTANTISM DESTEOYS CHEISTIANITY. 79 

cessors of the very magistrates who condemned 
Servetus, of the pastors who excommunicated him 
as the denier of the Trinity, now themselves unite 
in rejecting that doctrine ! The faith of the great 
churches of Geneva is Unitarianism. The system 
of John Calvin is almost extinct in the town where 
he was once the spiritual tyrant. fc There are be- 
lievers in the divinity of our blessed Lord Jesus 
existing in Geneva, it is true, who are divided into 
several parties, but the national church of Geneva 
is Unitarian. The number of inhabitants in Ge- 
neva amounts to about 64,000 ; among them are 
about 40,000 Unitarians, 18,000 Soman Catho- 
lics, and the miserable balance only are left to 
Protestant TrinitarianismP 

We all know how things have turned out af- 
ter three centuries of Protestantism in Germany. 
There is no need of testimony on that point. 

We all know how it is in New England, and 
wherever New England emigration has spread. 
But let me read you an extract in illustration. 
Not many months since, the Hartford Courant 
informed us that "the Congregational ministers 
of Connecticut have thoroughly canvassed their 
parishes to ascertain the actual religious condition 
of the State. The result was unexpected. In one 
hundred towns, at least one-third of the families 
are not in the habit of going to church. Irreligion 
was found to increase in proportion to the dis- 
tance from the centre of the towns. It prevails 
more in sparsely-settled farming districts than in 



80 THE FAILUKE OF PKOTESTANTISM. 

the manufacturing villages. The Committee on 
Plome Evangelization say in their published re- 
port: 

" ' The returns give the impression that the 
Roman Catholic population do not often sink to 
so low a grade of heathenism as the irreligious 
native-born population. They do not entirely 
abandon some thought of God, and some respect 
for their own religious observances. Uniformly 
the districts most utterly given over to desolation 
are districts occupied by a population purely na- 
tive American. A similar state of things is re- 
ported to exist in some parts of Massachusetts.' " 

Now, brethren, I am not, of course, defending 
Roman Catholicism. But it is at least singular to 
notice that of the two evils in Connecticut, Ro- 
manism and Protestantism, that which with all its 
errors is still Catholic, is, according to the official 
testimony of Protestants themselves, the lesser evil. 

Kow, let us see what is going on among the 
Presbyterians. Some years ago there was a long 
article in the New York Observer (Old School) in 
eulogy of an excellent " Elect Lady," who was es- 
pecially commended for knowing the Westminster 
Catechism by heart, and teaching it carefully to 
her descendants. The Observer then went on to 
say : " There are few among us now, fewer in pro- 
portion than in previous years, of whom such a 
fact can be affirmed! What is the reason? Is 
the catechism obsolete? Is it a bad instruction 
for our children ? " ISTow, brethren, this is a very 



PEOTESTANTISM DESTEOYS CHRISTIANITY. 81 

important confession, showing the downward ten- 
dency of Protestantism in the Presbyterian ranks. 
Nor is this confined to Presbyterianism in the 
United States. At the antipodes it is as bad or 
worse. Permit me to read to yon the following 
item from a dissenting paper in England : 

"From some proceedings before the Presby- 
tery of Tasmania on the 22d of April, it appears 
that one of their number, the Rev. Mr. Robert- 
son, is charged with entertaining unsound views 
on Baptism and the Lord's Supper, having a ten- 
dency to Unitarianism. The Presbytery declined 
by a majority to file a libel on Mr. Robertson. 
The Rev. Mr. J. Storie then said that he and 
those who thought with him had determined, in 
case a majority of the Presbytery acquitted Mr. 
Robertson, to apply to the Home Government to 
withhold the grant from the Church of Scotland in 
this colony, on the ground that the majority of the 
Presbytery had apostatized from the faith of their 
fathers. The Rev. Dr. Turnbull and the Rev. J. 
Walker concurred in the statement of Mr. Storie ; 
and Mr. "Walker remarked that the Presbytery 
must either be purified or swept away altogether P 

Look at Harvard University, once Trinitarian, 
but descending, after a while, into Unitarianism. 
Tale College was established, if I mistake not, 
owing to the Unitarianism of Harvard. But, at 
any rate, years ago, President Clap, on entering 
upon his duties at Yale, " publicly acknowledged 
not only the Westminster Catechism and Confes- 



82 THE EAILUKE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

sion of Faith and the Saybrook Platform, but also 
the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds as 
agreeing with the word of God." The gradual 
but steady degeneracy of the Protestant system 
would, however, work out its own results. And so 
we find that President Stiles differed from his 
predecessor. Dr. Stiles would not accept the 
office of President until the corporation had abro- 
gated the tests instituted by President Clap, with 
the exception of the Saybrook Platform. The 
Saybrook Platform held its own till 1822, when all 
tests were abrogated. "Thus in regard to the 
formal teaching of theology in the ' Church of 
Christ in Yale College, 5 as required by statute, it 
began with full, definite, established formulas of 
Faith, and ended in — nothing." But the evi- 
dences of the inevitable descent of Protestantism 
from the high standards of faith and practice, 
which it carried with it out of the Church, are 
varied as well as numerous. Time was, for in- 
stance, when the vast majority of Protestants held 
it to be right to baptize their infants. The decay 
of infant baptism among them is another token 
that they are sinking from the faith of their 
fathers. The annual report (1860) of the Congre- 
gational General Association of Connecticut in- 
forms us that there were " many instances of Con- 
gregational societies, numbering their members 
by hundreds, but having not one infant baptism 
through the year." But I might fill this sermon 
with similar extracts. 



PEOTESTANTISM DESTEOYS CHEISTIANITY. §3 

I pass on to lay before you reasons, addi- 
tional to those presented in previous sermons, 
why the logical result of Protestantism is Rational- 
ism. 

It is patent that, in Massachusetts and else- 
where, whole orthodox Congregational Societies 
have gone down as bodies into Unitarianism. 
Now, if individuals only had gone, they might be 
considered as eccentric cases. But where societies 
have gone as bodies, pastor and the majority of 
his people, it shows that there was some logical 
necessity about it. 

If, too, this descent of Presbyterianism into 
Congregationalism, and of Trinitarian Congrega- 
tionalism into old-fashioned Unitarianism, and of 
old high Unitarianism into Parkerism, was only 
to be found in isolated cases, or in one section of 
a country, or even in one country, or in one cen- 
tury only, we might think it had happened from 
individual peculiarity, or from local causes, or 
from national idiosyncrasy. But when the evi- 
dences of the grand descent are everywhere where 
Protestantism has been, and not even confined to 
one century, there must be some logical necessity 
about it to account for it. Why, look at England 
in 1656. Protestantism was at first Presbyterian 
there. But the English mind was a logical mind, 
and Presbyterianism was not long in giving birth 
to Congregationalism (or Independentism), which 
grew in Cromwell's day into far larger propor- 
tions than those of the mother that bore it. 



84 THE FAILUKE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

Everywhere we find every tiling indicating the 
downward movement. 

I proceed, then, to give a reason, additional to 
those set forth in previous sermons, for this 
gravity. 

The great truths which distinguish Christian- 
ity are the Mediation, the Priesthood, the Royal- 
ty, and the Sacrifice of Christ. These truths have 
their natural, visible expressions in the Church 
Apostolic and Catholic. "What are those expres- 
sions? First, how does the spiritual fact of 
Christ's Mediation find its corresponding expres- 
sion in the Church ? Why, in all those peculiari- 
ties which come in between the sinner and God, 
and which are intermediate, not for the purpose 
of sundering but of uniting the two. There are, 
for instance, the sacraments and ordinances of the 
Church ; the separation of the holy altar from the 
nave by a railing ; the fact that the layman ap- • 
proaches to the rail and no farther ; and, in fact, 
all the intermediate rites and ceremonies of the 
Church. Secondly, how does the spiritual fact 
of Christ's Priesthood find its visible expression 
in the Church ? Why, in the apostolic clergy on 
earth, who act for the laity ; who alone can con- 
secrate and administer the Blessed Eucharist. 
Thirdly, where, in the Church, do we find the 
visible expression of Christ's Royalty, His au- 
thority as King ? We find it in the government 
that God hath set over His Church Militant ; in 
the Rector as the governor of the Parish, and the 



PEOTESTANTISM DESTEOYS CHEISTIANITY. §5 

Bishop as the governor of the Rectors and laity. 
Then, fourthly, the Sacrifice of Christ finds its 
visible expression in the Blessed Eucharist. 

Now, in every family the children are in a 
natural school ; as from earliest infancy they look 
up to their earthly father, they are gaining impres- 
sions touching what God must be as their Heav- 
enly Father ; they are learning to look up to, rev- 
erence, and obey Him. Just so God would set 
us all in the school of the Church ; that, trained 
in that school, and under the constant influence 
of the four visible expressions I have mentioned, 
we may not lose our hold of the prime facts of 
the Mediation, the Priesthood, the Royalty, and 
the Sacrifice of Christ. 

Now, Protestantism has striven to turn the 
world out of that school ; and what wonder if, in 
the end, its adherents lose knowledge of, and be- 
lief in, those prime facts ! 

For let us try the effect of the destruction of 
any one of the four visible expressions. The cry 
of the Protestant is, " I want no visible Church ; 
I want nothing of the kind to come in between 
me and God ; I want no rails at chancels ; I want 
no communion-table shut up in an apartment by 
itself ; bring it down into the congregation ; your 
whole visible scheme of intermediation is in the 
way ; it is impertinent ; I can and will go direct 
to God myself without your cumbersome church- 
ly machinery ; I want no set lessons from Scrip- 
ture selected for my contemplation on set days ; 



86 THE FAILURE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

I can select for myself; I want no days set apart 
by the Church in which I must meditate on cer- 
tain truths ; I can think of any of those truths at 
any time." And so Protestantism, borne on by its 
spirit of liberty, so called, clears away the whole. 

You can go direct to God, indeed, Mr. Protes- 
tant? Our scheme of visible intermediation in 
the way and impertinent ? Ah, brethren, do you 
not see that this strikes at the principle of a/ny 
mediation ivhatever ? By such assertions Protes- 
tantism yields the vital principle itself to Ration- 
alism. And it is not at all strange that, in the 
hands of such giants as Beecher, Channing, and 
Parker, the Protestant mind should slowly sink 
into avowed Rationalism. Here is the explana- 
tion of the fact, that thousands of young and 
middle-aged men, sons and grandsons of the old- 
fashioned Protestants, are either secret doubters 
or avowed skeptics ; and that our very churches 
are crowded with semi-Deists, who chafe under 
any preaching save the preaching of glittering 
generalities about morality and natural goodness. 
The fact is, in abandoning God's Visible Church 
Catholic, Protestants have abandoned the vital 
outwork of the doctrine of Mediation — the sole 
defence of that doctrine ; and with the outwork 
gone, the city itself falls. It is fatal to touch that 
in the Church Visible which is harmonious with, 
and which expresses and conserves the great truth 
of, the Mediation. 

Try now the effect of the destruction of the 



PEOTESTANTISM DESTEOYS CHEISTIANITY. 87 

outwork or bulwark of the Priesthood of Christ, 
the second great spiritual fact of Christianity. 
Strike down the Apostolic ministry of the Yisible 
Church Catholic, and you equally expose the 
spiritual fact of the Priesthood of Christ. And 
thus laid bare and unprotected, it also falls before 
the attacks of nationalism. Let us look at this a 
little : 

The Protestant cry is, " There is no such thing 
as a visible Priesthood on earth; the ministry 
need not originate from the apostles alone, and 
come down in the regular succession which the 
Catholics claim; it originates as well from the 
people, in whom primarily its powers are lodged." 
In other words, as a recent writer says, " The 
people and not the apostles are the true ultimate 
source of ecclesiastical and ministerial power ; " 
the Christian ministry, according to the Protes- 
tant cry, " are not a distinct order of men ; and 
hence there is no such thing as a Christian Priest- 
hood in distinction from the people at large." 
" Every man his own priest to God," is the popu- 
lar cry. 

Every man his own priest to God, indeed, Mr. 
Protestant ? Nothing between God and man ? 
Ah, beloved, do you not perceive that Protestant- 
ism, though it may not yield all at once the naked 
fact of the spiritual priesthood of Christ, has, 
after all, by this fatal step, yielded the principle 
of any priesthood whatever ? Do you not see 
that, with the vital principle gone, with the 



88 THE FAILUEE OF PBOTESTANTISM. 

practical denial of the principle rooted in their 
minds, the mere intellectual notion of Christ's 
Priesthood, which they still retain for a while, has 
been undermined, and will sooner or later fall, if 
not in the first generation, then in the second, 
third, or fourth ? It must logically fall, and, alas, 
it does fall practically ! It will not do to tamper 
with that fundamental feature of God's Church, 
namely, the Apostolic ministry. It will not do to 
raise to a level with it a ministry whose ultimate 
source of authority is laymen or unauthorized 
presbyters, instead of the Holy Apostles ; for, as 
the fountain cannot rise higher than its spring, the 
rearing of such a man-made ministry is the break- 
ing down of all ministry to a level with laymen ; 
and this is simply and solely and logically a blow 
at the cherished Priesthood of Christ Itself. 

A similar course of remark might be made on 
the government of the Church, which is the vis- 
ible expression on earth of the spiritual truth of 
the Royalty of Christ, and which is the school in 
which God in His wisdom has set us, that we 
may learn and not lose the knowledge of that 
prime fact. And a similar course of remark might 
be made on the Blessed Eucharist as the conserver 
of the fact of the Sacrifice of Christ. But enough 
has been said to show how Protestantism is logi- 
cally destructive of Christianity. 

Think of the millions it has drawn away from 
Christ ; think how it has sapped the foundations 
of Christianity ! My friends, these are words not 



PBOTESTANTISM DESTEOYS CHRISTIANITY. §9 

calculated to be popular ; but they are words that 
need to be spoken. When some poor bewildered 
mind goes over to Rome, some Churchmen roll up 
eyes of holy horror ; but they forget the vastly 
more serious events that are taking place in the 
opposite direction. We are not so much in dan- 
ger of superstition as we are of skepticism. I 
would have you mark this, my beloved, I would 
have you meditate upon it, I would have you re- 
peat it to your friends, viz., that those exceptional 
cases that have gone to Rome are as a single star 
to all the myriads of stars in comparison with the 
thousands who have fallen innocently and uncon- 
sciously into the fatal drift of Protestantism, and 
been sucked down at last into the rushing swirl 
of Unitarianism and the dreadful vortex of In- 
fidelity. 

As I make this assertion, you will not under- 
stand me as saying that it is the first generation 
which passes out of the Church into Protestantism 
that runs this entire career into Rationalism. It 
is only here and there that you find a person with 
brain enough to pass the entire distance from the 
top to the bottom of the logical slope. I could 
point you to one, whom we all know by reputa- 
tion, that started as a high Presbyterian, and has 
now reached the point of low Congregationalism, 
which is but a shade above high Unitarianism. 
And then I could point you to another, now 
dead, whose fame was world-wide, that started as 
a young man at the point of high Unitarianism, 



90 THE FAILUEE OF PKOTESTANTISM. 

and ran the rest of the logical career into Ra- 
tionalism. Such, I say, are rare cases. Nay, it 
is, in general, only successive generations that run 
the full career. The mass of mind moves slowly 
down a logical slope. But man is logical, and 
the mass of mind moves surely and inevitably. 
The Methodists, as a body, have already in one 
hundred years moved too far down the slope, and 
gathered too much momentum, ever to come back 
to the Catholic summit of the hill. Individuals 
may get back, but, as a body, Methodism is 
doomed. 

When, beloved, a mother, leaving our Church, 
goes to Presbyterianism, she thinks she is merely 
exchanging one form of Christianity for another ; 
that it is, to all intents and purposes, a venial, a 
harmless change. She has no idea that she has 
leaped the immense gulf that lies between Chris- 
tianity and incipient Rationalism. But when she 
has taken the step, what has she done ? She has 
done all she can to give her children a heritage 
of Congregationalism, her grandchildren a heri- 
tage of Unitarianism, and her great-grandchildren 
a heritage of Infidelity. 

There are great warnings against Home. Well, 
Home is an evil. But it is time the solemn word 
was spoken, and spoken boldly, of warning against 
the far worse evil of Protestantism. It is time 
men understood that Protestantism is an awful 
and most dangerous heresy. 



PROTESTANTISM THE SECOND GREAT 
HERESY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 

" Bat there were false prophets also among the people, even 
as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring 
in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, 
and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall 
follow their pernicious ways ; by reason of whom the way of 
truth shall be evil spoken of." — 2 Peter ii. 1, 2. 

Ix fulfilment of this prophecy, many heresies 
have arisen and swarmed around Christianity. 
Each has had its venomous sting. But there are 
three monstrous forms of the brood, before which 
all the others are quite insignificant. The first of 
these was Arianism ; the second was Protestant- 
ism ; and the third is modern " Criticism," repre- 
sented by Strauss, Penan, Colenso, and others. 
All other forms of heresy struck at the super- 
structure and pinnacles of Christianity, but these 
three enormous heresies have their bad preemi- 
nence because they struck or strike at Her very 
foundations. For if, as I showed in the second 
discourse, the Bible rests on the Church, it is no 
less true that Christianity rests on the double sup- 



92 THE FAILTJKE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

port of the Church and the Bible. Touch either 
of the two, and Her position becomes more than 
critical, for She must fall. Permit me to change 
the figure. Christianity stands secure behind two 
allied armies, viz., the Church and the Bible. As 
long as these armies mutually support each other, 
and neither of them is broken, Christianity is 
safe. 

Now, so far as human ingenuity can conceive 
at present, there are only three ways by which 
Christianity can be exposed from behind Her pro- 
tection, rendered helpless, and slain : First, the 
Church may be directly attacked ; second, the 
two allied bodies, viz., the Church and the Bible, 
may be set in antagonism with each other; or 
third, the Bible may be directly attacked. 

Take the first case. The Church, as a visible 
organic body, as the Body Mystical of Christ, de- 
pends for Her very life upon Christ. Destroy the 
God-man within Her, and you have struck down 
Her life ; you have reduced Her to a dead body, 
and Christianity will fall. This attack was made 
by the heresiarch Arius. This attack was the 
boldest of the three against Christianity. Suffice 
it to say, though Christianity was, humanly speak- 
ing, in critical position for years, the attack failed. 
Arius did not intend to take the life of Christian- 
ity ; but he was none the less an heresiarch for 
all his good intentions. 

ISTow take the second case. As Christianity 
stood secure behind her two mutually supporting 



PEOTESTANTISM A HEEESY. 93 

armies, viz., the Church, and the Bible, instead of 
a direct attack on either army, the two armies 
could be set fighting each other ; and so Chris- 
tianity become exposed. This was done by Prot- 
estantism. This was the meanest mode of attack. 
I do not say that Calvin and Luther and Zwinglius 
and the rest of them intended to destroy Chris- 
tianity any more than Arius did. "Very far from 
it. But they were none the less heresiarchs for 
that. For, brethren, we are looking at the whole 
movement from a stand-point where we can take 
in both worlds at once — this world and the world 
beneath. And we must judge such movements 
by their logical and historical results, and not 
merely by the good motives of the men who were 
engaged in them. It was none the less disastrous 
to "the patient whose eye was put out, that the 
bungling oculist only sought to remove an irri- 
tating particle. We must consider the disastrous 
effects of the Continental Reformation on the 
souls of men to-day, if we would get at the other 
cause that was operating in it besides the men 
who trod the earth. Protestantism made an ally 
of the Bible, and with it flew at the Church to 
destroy Her. I do not deny that the Church 
needed reforming. But a call for reformation is 
very different from a call for destruction. Satan, 
however, saw his advantage, and picked his men. 
I do not acquit the obstinacy of the Ultra-mon- 
tanism of the day. It was maddening to the 
other party ; and doubtless Satan had something 



94: THE FAILUEE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

to do with. it. But it was in order that lie might 
use it to fire up Protestantism as his main engine 
of evil. Suffice it to say, Protestantism, making 
an ally of the Bible, succeeded, not in reforming 
the Church, but in attacking and destroying Her 
in many lands. And so we have the sad spectacle 
of a prostrate Christianity in those lands. 

The Evening Post, in its last evening's issue, 
in speaking of the " Aspects of Religious Life in 
Germany," says: "A letter on this subject ap- 
pears in the Methodist, written by Rev. Abel 
Stevens, a leading scholar of his denomination, 
who has taken great pains to become familiarly 
acquainted with the domestic and inner life of the 
people of Germany. He confesses that, after five 
visits, and much careful observation, living in 
many families, and travelling on foot among the 
villages, he does not yet fairly understand their 
religious condition." But, brethren, the rest of 
the world are beginning to understand it, and to 
brand its cause with the mark it deserves. I con- 
tinue the quotation : " Their country," says this 
reverend gentleman, " is studded with antique 
churches ; their history is full of religious achieve- 
ments ; their traditions full of religious legends ; 
their universities rife with religious polemics ; but 
there is apparently no religious life in the heart 
of the race, if you except the peculiar little parties 
of pietists, Moravians, and Methodists, who really 
are exceptional to the whole modern genius of the 
people. Indifference to all vital religion seems to 



PROTESTANTISM A HERESY. 95 

be a characteristic of the mass of the Germanic 
race. They appear to have exhausted their old 
interest in it, after so many struggles and revolu- 
tions of opinion and criticism, and now turn away 
from it as if tired of it, and waiting for something 
new as a substitute."* He thinks that "religious 
indifference is the leading characteristic of the 
masses, as free-thinking and materialism are of 
the cultivated classes, and that between them re- 
ligious life has mostly died out. Few of the men 
ever go to church, and few religious forms remain" 
in families, while Sunday has become a holiday, 
on which the bier-garten is the chief place of re- 
sort." 

Brethren, add Switzerland to Germany, and 
call to mind, as a type-fact of the state of things 
there, that Calvin's own parish is in the very dregs 
of TJnitarianism, and that the very pulpit from 
which that violent man thundered is now occu- 
pied by a Rationalist. Add New England, and 
count the " Orthodox Congregational " Societies 
that have gone over as bodies to Unitarianism in 
the past century, and then count the Unitarian 
parishes that have gone down to Ultra-Parkerism. 
There are fossil Unitarians in New England ; there 
are reactionary Unitarians ; but the real thinkers 
and the great body of the laymen are going where 
logic points, and are to-day out-Parkering Parker 
himself in their denial of Christianity. The latter 
class command, at least, our respect for their con- 
sistency. The reactionary class may inspire us 



96 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

witli hope ; but the fossils are unworthy of men- 
tion. 

IsTow, brethren, if Unitarianism started simply 
with the view of teaching a better idea of God 
than had been taught, but without the slightest 
design of destroying the Bible, and if it has re- 
sulted (as indeed it has) in logically producing a 
Theodore Parker school of thought destructive of 
the Bible, then it is very evident that Unitarian- 
ism, considered as a preserver of the Bible, is a 
failure. So, equally, if Protestantism started with 
the view of preserving Christianity, but only of 
teaching a better system of Christianity than that 
taught by the Church Catholic, and if it ends logi- 
cally in destroying fundamental Christian truth, 
and historically in plunging the vast majority of 
thinking men, in the lands where it has had sway, 
into skepticism and mere natural religion, then 
surely Protestantism as a system for the preserva- 
tion of Christianity is a consummate failure, an 
awful cheat, a delusion for souls. By all sound 
logic Protestantism ought to go down into Uni- 
tarianism, and then Unitarianism die out in Par- 
kerism and bald Rationalism. Now, if this logical 
anticipation stood alone, unfortified by historical 
fact, persons might be justified in feeling that, 
however fair the logic looked, there might be 
some flaw in it somewhere. If, on the other hand, 
regardless of any logical anticipation, it had his- 
torically happened that peoples, once Protestant, 
had each somehow or other become Rationalistic, 



PROTESTANTISM A HERESY. 97 

then we might be justified in saying that perhaps 
it ought not to have been so logically, but that 
some other cause came in to send them down and 
out of Christianity. But where logic anticipates 
the historical issue, and the historical fact con- 
firms the logical anticipation, the case is about 
closed. If Protestantism has not signally failed 
in preserving Christianity, then pray where has 
it succeeded ? 

Don't point me to advance in science, and edu- 
cation, and invention ; all that isn't Protestant- 
ism. Electricity, and the needle-gun, and the 
education of the masses, and such like, are as con- 
sistent with the spirit and prevalence of Catholi- 
city as they are with the spirit and prevalence of 
Protestantism. 'Nov do I assert that Protestant- 
ism was an unmitigated evil. Satan is always 
ready to give away a sixpence worth of good, if 
under the cover of such generosity he can gain a 
dollar's worth of evil. Then, again, do not re- 
gard me as condemning persons. There is a dif- 
ference between condemning persons and con- 
demning their systems. Persons are to be judged 
by their motives ; systems by their results. To 
stab Christianity to the heart was the very last 
thing Calvin and Luther intended to do. But 
that the result of their principles is logically, and 
has been historically, what I state, is patent. 
That there will be some — mere creatures of pre- 
judice, and blind as bats ; and that there will be 
others — moved by social and public position, who 
5 



98 THE FAILUKE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

will not see all this, and who will be either pro 
yoked at the assertion that Protestantism has 
failed, or will for a time pass the matter over 
with a supercilious smile, is to be expected. They 
are to be pitied. They do not know the earth- 
quake forces that are working under them. .For I 
am stating to you, brethren, simply what thou- 
sands upon thousands (I do not exaggerate), 
here and across the water, have been feeling for a 
long time — namely, that Protestantism is Satan 
clothed in the garments of light. Brethren, you 
are going to see Unitarianism grow into a large 
body ; for it is destined to fatten and grow huge 
for a time on the carcass of dying Trinitarian 
Protestantism. The mission of Unitarianism as a 
destroyer is not yet closed on earth. 

Thus Arianism attacked one of the foundations 
of Christianity, viz., the Church. Protestantism 
set the two foundations, viz., Bible and Church, 
a-knocking against each other. I repeat, so far 
as human ingenuity can at present conceive, only 
one more really great heretical antagonist to 
Christianity is possible, namely, an antagonist 
that shall make a direct assault on the Bible. 
This last assault has now been commenced by the 
Critical School of Prance, Grermanv, and England. 
If the first was the boldest attack, and the second 
the meanest, this third and last is the most intel- 
lectual and respectable. Arianism is dead (for 
modern Unitarians are not Arians) ; Protestantism 
is dying by inches, and " Criticism " is rising to 



t 



PEOTESTANTISM A HEEESY. 99 

be our real, robust, and dangerous foe. The rise 
of the " Critical School " is not strange. Alas, 
poor Protestantism, that very Private Judgment, 
which she summoned up to rush at and destroy 
the Church, now made strong by exercise, and 
bold by petting and encouragement, turns to tear 
her Bible with its talons, and prey upon her own 
bosom. The very rise of these two determined 
and already large schools, viz. : the Catholic and 
the Infidel Free Thinking, and their common re- 
coil away from Protestantism, the former in the 
direction of the old defences, where Church and 
Bible can stand together and impregnable, and 
the latter in the direction of an earnest, honest, 
but blind clutching after truth, is an additional 
evidence of the failure of Protestantism as a sys- 
tem. Permit me here to quote the language of a 
late English article which I read day before yes- 
terday, and which is in exact accord with what I 
have said in this course of sermons. " There can 
be," the writer says, u only Catholic Christianity 
and Rationalism; only those who fall back on 
that point of Church authority abandoned at the 
Reformation, or those who seek out a new basis 
for the reconstruction of religion. That a few 
will hold on still to what is demonstrably unten- 
able is only what is to be expected. But it will 
be only those mentally incapacitated for realizing 
the weakness of their position, or those who allow 
their reason to be distorted by their prejudice. 
The vast majority of intelligent persons are al- 



100 THE FAILUKE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

ready convinced that Christianity must have some 
other hold-fast than Scripture alone, if the Faith 
is not to be swept away into the ocean of unbe- 
lief." 

One of the most noteworthy signs of the times 
is a wide-spread yearning for unity. Catholics 
both in England and America are holding out the 
olive-branch to the Methodists ; and other analo- 
gous movements are taking place both in Rome 
and in the Greek Church. I have already called 
your attention to the fact that while Protestant- 
ism has no common creed, the Catholic Church, 
however her parts may differ from each other, has, 
underneath those differences, a common Creed, a 
common Ministry, and common Sacraments. For 
our Church does not assert that there are " only 
two Sacraments;" but that there are two only 
which are generically necessary to salvation. She 
gives to the other five the title of " Sacraments " 
also. JSTow, here, in this common Ministry, faith 
and Sacraments, is the sole basis of any unity that 
is possible in Christendom. It is not necessary 
that all the parts, Greek," Roman, and Anglican, 
should shape themselves after one precise pattern. 
This would be a unity of simplicity, not the larger, 
more developed unity of multiplexity. This would 
be the unity of the seed, not the great complex 
unity of the tree. It is not necessary that there 
be one ritual for ail. Men are of different races. 
There is the ardent Slavonic, the less warm Latin, 
and the comparatively cold Anglican. Each has 



PEOTESTANTISM A HEEESY. IQl 

his own tastes and instincts, and religious de- 
mands. A ritual which, to us, would be glorious 
with ceremonial, would chili an Eastern, or Greek, 
to death with its apparent coldness. He needs 
more to express the same thing than we do. Why 
should one race of men impose its ritual on an- 
other ? Our truths are deeper than our rituals. 
We want no rigid uniformity either in manner or 
thought in the Catholic Church. Our faith, Min- 
istry, and Sacraments, are one already. All that 
we lack is such modification in doctrine, in each 
of the parts, as will enable a restoration of inter- 
communion to take place between the three, a 
mutual recognition again between the brothers of 
the same one family, and common organic action 
against the common enemy, the world. We want 
a recognition of the unity between the parts ; not 
an absorption of either part into another. Exces- 
sive legislation on small points, the miserable de- 
sire to be perpetually tinkering, and over-sensitive- 
ness on minor differences, have been the vices of 
the Church Catholic. We forget that there is a 
great body of general health in Her, which will in 
time throw off poisonous secretions if the latter 
are let quietly alone. 

But all this brings me to another point. I 
showed in the second sermon of this course, that 
while Protestantism gets the Church from the 
Bible, Catholicity gets the Bible from the Church. 
But their ideas are radically different as to what 
the Church is. The Protestant notion is, that 



102 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

" a Cliurcli is an aggregation of individuals who 
hold in common a certain theological system 
gathered out of the Scripture." Thus the basis 
of their unity is intellect. With them Sacraments 
are not, as we are taught by our Prayer Book, in- 
struments by which God doth work invisibly in 
us ; but they are rather " seals and pledges of a 
grace that has already been given." Protestant- 
ism makes " an intellectual process called faith, 
and a mental conviction called apprehension of 
Christ by faith, to be the means of effecting 
a union between the individual and Christ." 
Therefore it were a mere form to baptize in- 
fants. But with Catholicism, on the other hand, 
the Church is not a mere aggregation of intellec- 
tually-consenting individuals, each of whom has 
passed through this intellectual process and had 
this mental conviction. But the Church is a Liv- 
ing Body, having a corporate Head ; a Yisible 
Body with an Invisible Life. That Life, that 
Soul of the Church, is Christ. He moves over the 
earth in His Body mystical, and is as really pres- 
ent, and acting, and speaking, to-day in that Body, 
as He was eighteen hundred years ago, when He 
was on earth in His Body natural. We call you 
to no merelv intellectual accord with a Being: 
of long ago. "We call you to no mere memory of 
a Being who passed away eighteen hundred years 
ago. Catholicity has not. dropped Christ into the 
past, and lost Him as a real existence, retaining 
simply a memory and an intellectual conception 



PBOTESTANTISM A HEEESY. 1Q3 

of Him. She still has Hini. She gives you the 
very Being at whose feet St. Mary sat. He is 
here now in His Body Mystical, still going forth 
to yon, still ready to feed you. "With Catholicity 
the members of the Body Mystical are grafted into 
Its divine life by the Sacrament of Baptism, which 
was divinely appointed to that end ; and they par- 
take of Its divine life unto their spiritual develop- 
ment, through Its means of grace, and especially 
Its Blessed Eucharist. Catholicity holds that the 
union with Christ thus supernaturally effected by 
God in baptism is " irrespective of any exercise 
of the intellect, but is a free gift of God," where 
there is no bar ; and that, therefore, infants may 
and should be baptized. Thus the Catholic is a 
spiritual not an intellectual system. Its basis of 
unity is Christ, and not man's intellect. The 
Catholic, I say, holds that Christ is really within 
the Church, and that life and truth are to spread 
from Him through His Body Mystical on earth. 
Furthermore, the Catholic holds that, " in order to 
the extension and communication of this spiritual 
life and grace, our Lord appointed a ministry in 
His Church, whose office is to administer the means 
of grace to its members ; and that He appointed 
the Apostles to this office with power to transmit 
their commission to others in an orderly way, as 
the needs of the Body required," and so on till the 
end of time. This is another distinction between 
Catholicity and Protestantism. I take it I need 
do no other than simply refer you to your Prayer 



104 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

Book, and leave you to decide whether our Church 
is Protestant or Catholic. 

In conclusion, " The Church has authority in 
matters of faith," says the Prayer Book. " Nay," 
says Protestantism, " the individual judgment hath 
authority in matters of faith ; and, if one of ' our 
churches ' does not harmonize in its faith with my 
notions, I have a perfect right to shake off the 
dust from my feet at its doors, and go forth and 
organize another ' Church." 5 And so he has, 
brethren ; so he has ; we don't deny that. One 
human institution is as good as another, and 
all together, so far as the salvation of souls five 
hundred years hence is concerned, are not worth 
the paper their constitutions and long declara- 
tions of doctrine are written upon. It doesn't 
take many centuries for the whole pack of them 
to tumble over each other down into the valley of 
oblivion.* So he has, I repeat, a perfect right to 

* Below is a list of sects (by no means a complete list) which 
have buzzed about the Catholic Church. Some of them grew to 
enormous size in their day, and lasted several centuries ; but their 
names even sound strangely to modern ears. The numbers indi- 
cate the centuries in which the sects arose : 



I Docithians. 


2 Abelites. 


1 Nicolaitans. 


2 Colarbasians. 


1 Saturninians. 


2 Cerdonians. 


•• Millennarians. 


2 Ossenians. 


2 Basilides. 


2 Marcionites. 


2 Epiphanians. 
2 Hydroparasites. 


2 Proclianites. 


2 Serpentinians 


2 Melitonians. 


- 2 Cainites. 


2 Saccophori. 


2 Valentinians. 


2 Severians. 


2 Cerinthians. 


2 Ophites. 
2 Alogi. 


2 Nazareans. 


2 Apotactics, 



PROTESTANTISM A HERESY. 



105 



go forth and organize another " Church. 5 ' And 
thus we have a " Church " organized by Luther, 
and another " Church n organized by Calyin, and 
another " Church " organized by Campbell, and 



2 Montanists. 
2 Adamites. 
2 Material] 

2 ArclioiK 
2 Ebioni: 
2 Marcites. 

2 Antitaetiw 
2 Elxaites. 
2 Alogians. 
2 Herinogenians. 
2 Aseodrogites. 
2 Ascodrutes. 
2 Encratites. 
2 Carpocratians. 
2 Bardesamites. 
2 Artemonites. 
2 Artotyrites. 
2 Mareellans. 
2 Ascetics. 
2 Sethians. 
2 Lucianists. 
2 Quintilians. 
2 Florinians. 
2 Elcesaites. 

2 Patripassians. 

3 Novatians. 
3 Passalorynchites 
3 Eternals' 
3 Asclepidoteans. 
I Noetians. 
" Paulianists. 
3 Athocians. 
3 Apocarites. 
3 Beryllians. 
3 Manieh; 
3 Hieracites. 
3 Adelphians. 
3 Aquilinians. 
3 Arabians. 
3 Valetiaus. 

3 Solitar 

4 Eusebians. 
4 Psathyrians. 
4 Heloidans. 
4 Yigilantian?. 
4 Luciferians. 
4 Jovinianists. 





4 Heracleonites. 




4 Macedonians. 




4 Incorruptil 




4 Colluthians. 




4 Arians. 




4 Pneumato-MaclristB. 




4 Apollinarians. 




4 Accacians. 




4 Semi-xArians. 




4 Meletians. 




4 Priscillianists. 




4 Tascodragitae. 




4 Messalians or Encliites, 




4 Pkotinians. 




4 Donatists. 




4 Anthropomorphites. 




4 Doeetiw 




4 Psaltyrians. 




4 Anomceans. 




4 Auda?ans. 




4 Eudoxians. 




4 Eunomians. 




4 Assnritans. 




4 Satamans. 




4 Collyridians. 




4 Eustathians. 


OS. 


4 Abelonians. 




4 Euphratesi 




- 4 Aerians. 




4 Sabellians. 




4 iEtians. 




•5 Nestorians. 




5 Coelicola?. 




5 Angelites. 




5 Patricians. 




5 Theopaschites. 




5 Pelagians. 




5 Eutychians. 




5 Monopkysites. 
5 S end-Pelagians. 






5 Mop suet ians. 




5 Acepliali. 




5 Armenians. 




5 Predestinarians. 




6 Acoemetse. 




6 Agnoites. 




6 Barsanians. 


5* 





106 



THE FAILUEE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 



another " Church. " organized by George Fox, and a 
great many others, organized by I know not whom. 
But in the language of a venerable presbyter of 
Massachusetts, " I have somewhere read that the 



6 Tritheites. 
6 Comipticolse. 
6 Gaianitse. 
6 Paulicians. 
6 Damianists. 

6 Cononites. 

7 Chazinzarians. 
7 Ethnophrones. 
7 Agynians. 

7 Maronites. 
7 Agonyclitee. 

7 Monothelites. 

8 Albanenses. 

8 Adoptionists. 

9 Abraharaites. 

10 Paterines. 

11 Berengarians. 

12 Pasaginians. 
12 Albigenses. 
12 Waldenses. 

12 Tanguelinians. 
12 Gazares. 
12 Henricians. 
12 Leueopetrians. 
12 Bogomiles. 
12 Apostles. 

12 Circumcelliones. 

13 Willielminians. 
13 Almericians. 
13 Flagellants. 

13 Carthari. 

13 Bethlehemites. 

13 Brethren and Sisters of the 

Free Spirit. 

14 Wickliffites. 
14 Dulcinists. 
14 Barlaamites. 
14 Dancers. 

14 Albati. 

14 Quietists. 

15 Adiaphorists. 
15 Hussites. 

15 Calixtines. 

15 Orevites. 

15 Orphans. 

15 Taberites. 

15 Bchemian Brethren. 



15 White Brethren. 

16 Brownists. 
16 Flemingians. 
16 Erastians. 
16 Budnseans. 
16 Davidists. 
16 Effronites. 
16 Socinians. 
16 Interimists. 
16 Libertines. 
16 Farnovians. 
16 Erquinians. 

16 Schwenkfeldians. 

16 Petro-brassians. 

16 Stancarists. 

16 Flacians. 

16 Carolostadians. 

16 Philipists. 

16 Petro-joannites. 

16 Osiandrians. 

16 Alascani. 

16 Arminians. 

16 Synergists. 

16 Ubiquitarians. 

16 Antosiandrians. 

16 Zwinglians. 

16 Sub-Lapsarians. 

16 Supra-Lapsarians. 

16 Amsdorfians. 

16 Galenists. 

16 Majorists. 

16 Lutherans. 

16 Gomerists. 

16 Hoffmanians. 

16 Ilhiminati. 

16 Independents. 

16 Anabaptists. 

16 Presbyterians. 

16 Imperfect Mennonites. 

16 Perfect Mennonites. 

17 Antinomians. 
17 Eosicrucians. 
17 Banters. 

17 Beddelians. 

General Baptist. 

Particular ' ' 
17 Anti-Mission " 



PEOTESTANTISM A HEEESY. 



107 



Church was organized by Christ." Such persons 
overlook the very gist of the whole matter. Christ 
Jesus is still on earth in His Body Mystical. 
Private judgment is all very well and proper so 



17 Free-Will Baptist. 

7th-Day " 

6-Principle " 

Scottish " 

Eiver Brethren. 

Christian Connection. 

Campbellites. 

Winnebrenarians. 
17 Borrelists. 
17 Collegiants. 
17 5th Monarchyruen. 
17 Drabicians. 
17 Seekers. 
17 Cocceians. 
17 Se Baptists. 
17 Muggletonians. 
17 Bourignonists. 
17 Crypto Calvinists. 
17 Amyraldists. 
17 Apostoolians. 
17 Eogerines. 
17 Cornarists. 
17 Waterlandians. 
17 Anti-Burghers. 
17 Cameronians. 
17 Haldanites. 
17 Labadists. 
17 Keithians. 
17 Grortonians. 
17 Lampetians. 

17 Quakers. 
Moravians. 
Nicolites. 

18 Inghamites. 
18 Leadlyans. 
18 Allenites. 

18 Lifters, or New Lights. 

18 Anti-Lifters, or Old Lights. 

18 Eeanointers. 

18 Southcottians. 

18 Hopkinsians. 

18 Shaking Quakers. 

18 Hattemists. 

Scotch Presbyterian Seceders. 

Original Seceders. 

Old Light Seceders. 
18 The Three Denominations. 



18 Destructionists. 

18 Free Thinkers. 

18 Baxterians. 

18 Sandemanians. 

18 Dissidents. 

18 Ellerians. 

18 Separates. 

18 Wilkinsonians. 

18 Bereans. 

18 AvigELonists. 

18 Disciplinarians. 

18 Dunkers. 

18 Daleites. 

18 Calvinistic Methodists. 

18 Wesleyan Methodists. 

18 Swedenborgians. 

18 New Connection Methodists. 

RECENT. 

Millerites. 

Carbonari. 

Hicksites. 

Gurneyites. 

Wilberites. 

New School Presbyterians. 

Old School Presbyterians. 

United Presbyterians. 

Associate Eeformed Presbyte- 
rians. 

Methodist Church, South, Black. 

Methodist Church, South, White. 

Cumberland Presbyterian. 

United Synod of Presbyterian 
Church. 

Mormons. 

Methodist Eeformers. 

Primitive Methodist. 

Central " 

Independent " 

Free " 

Protestant " 

Evang. As so. " 

Bryanites. 

Whitefield Methodist, Taber- 
nacle Connection. 

Whitefield Methodist, Lady 
Huntington Connection. 



108 



THE FAILUKE OF PBOTESTANTISM. 



long as God keeps silence. Let it have full reign. 
But when Jesus Himself speaks through His Body 
Mystical, it is time for private judgment to yield 
and be a little humble. 



Whitefield Methodist,Welsh Cal- 
vinistic Connection. 

Parkerites (?). 

Irvingites. 

Associate Synod of North Amer- 
ica. 

Associate Keform Synod of the 
South. 

Free Presbyterian Synod. 

Second Adventists. 



BESIDES THE ABOVE. 

Dutch Keformed. 

Marcosians. 

German Eeformed Church. 

Eellyan Universalists. 

Monarchians. 

Strigolniks. 

Anti-Sabbatarians. 

Unitarians. 



Apostolics. 
Universalists. 
Eestorationists. 
Christians. 
Halcyons. 
Bonosians. 
Caputiati. 
Harmonists. 
Lollards. 
Ebadians. 
Epefanoftschins. 
Ortlibenses. 
German Evang. Union. 
Diaconoftschins. 
Bezpopoftschins. 
And others too numerous to 
mention. 



Surely Sectarianism has tried 
often enough to found a last- 
ing form oi the Church. 



VI. 



CATHOLICITY AND ITS PRESENTMENT 
OP CHRISTIANITY, AS OPPOSED TO 
THE PRESENTMENT MADE BY PROTES- 
TANTISM. 

" Hold fast the form of sound words."— 2 Tim. i. 13. 

I resume the consideration of our main topic. 
The next step for us to take is to begin to develop 
what should be urged on the attention both of 
the masses and of the cultivated intellect of the 
day instead of Protestantism. What the world 
needs is neither Protestantism nor Rome, but 
Catholicity, the reasonable Catholic faith, the 
beautiful Catholic system, the warm, devoted, 
self-sacrificing Catholic spirit. What we want is 
less blind and foolish prejudice against Rome, 
that we may go to Her and learn why it is, and 
by what Catholic means it is, that She succeeds 
in all that in which She does succeed ; and less 
prejudice in Rome against the real and legitimate 
advance of the nineteenth century (pardon the 
vagueness of this phrase), in order that She may 
learn why it is that She fails in some respects. 
We need more of the Catholic spirit of our Church 



HO THE FAILUKE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

brought out ; Rome needs the errors which are 
merely accidental to Her system abolished, that 
we may both together move with crushing mo- 
mentum, first upon the Protestant outworks, and 
then upon the infidel citadel itself. If Protes- 
tantism has lost its hold on the masses, Pomanism 
has equally lost its hold on the intellect of the 
day. We want less preaching of generalities, 
about what is, after all, mere natural goodness, 
and more of positive, dogmatic teaching that shall 
be distinctively Christian. 

Kow, first, what is this Catholic faith that I 
speak of? The word "Catholic" means uni- 
versal. "Where am I to find that Catholic faith, 
then ? Suppose I go to the Methodists and ask 
them for their "Faith" and its concomitants. 
They would tell me of the foreknowledge of 
God; they would point me to their class-meet- 
ings and their class-leaders. But I should look in 
vain for all this in Italy, in Russia, in Spain, in 
South America, in Austria. And I should soon 
discover that the Methodists were a mere local 
body. Suppose, then, I should go to the Presby- 
terians. They would tell me of Fore-ordination 
and Absolute Decree; they would point me to 
their ruling Elders and their Presbyteries. I 
should find all this different from Methodism- 
And, moreover, I should find that the Presby 
terian was merely a local body also. Suppose 1 
should go to the Quakers. They would point me 
to their want of sacraments and of an ordained 



THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND FAITH. m 

ministry, and to their silent meetings. Here is 
something different still. Well, leaving all such, 
suppose I should come to our Church. She would 
point me, among other things, to her Thirty-nine 
Articles. I find that these are different from the 
Baptist or Congregational or Methodist declara- 
tions of faith. I should, moreover, look in vain 
for the Anglican Church per se in Sweden, in 
Brazil, or in Hungary. Suppose, then, I should 
go to the Roman Church. She would point me, 
among other things, to her Tridentine decrees 
and her Papal supremacy. But I should look in 
vain for all this through Russia or Siberia. I 
should find her also local as a body. It is clear I 
have gone the round world over and have not 
reached yet any faith that is Catholic. I find 
divisions in Christendom — schism. The complete 
set of dogmas and of corresponding practice, as 
presented by any one of these bodies, is not ac- 
cepted by all the rest. 

But now suppose it should happen that all 
Christendom . to-day could agree in one faith, 
would you not call that the Catholic faith % I 
suppose you would. But, beloved, suppose that 
faith should happen to be different from the faith 
as held in mediaeval times, or as held in the fourth 
or the first century, then it would not be the 
Catholic faith. For there are two kinds of schism, 
viz., the schism of space and the schism of time. 
In the Church of to-day one body of Christians 
may be cut off by schism from another. But 



112 THE FAILUEE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

schism may at least be conceived as equally ex- 
isting between the entire body of Christians to- 
day, and the entire body in the eighth century, 
whereby the former body are cut off from the 
latter. And all schism is sin. 

Thus you will see our faith may be local in 
time as well as in space. That only which has 
been held everywhere, always, and by all, is the 
Catholic faith. Here, then, we have reached our 
first approximation toward what we seek; that 
is to say, the Catholic faith is that which is held 
everywhere, always, and by all. 

JS~ow let us start on our second approximation. 
Is there any point, in Faith, Doctrine, or Practice, 
that has been agreed upon everywhere, always, 
and by all who call themselves Christians ? Noth- 
ing under the sun. Justification? Churchmen 
differ from Lutherans. Election ? Calvinists 
differ from Methodists. The Ministry ? Baptists 
differ from Catholics. Sacraments? The Qua- 
kers do not have them. The Bible ? Some hold 
to the whole, others only to a part. God Him- 
self? Unitarians hold to one, Trinitarians hold 
to another. We would seem to be as far from 
what we want as ever. But not so far as it seems. 
For there is either a Catholic faith, or there is not ; 
that is to say, there is something for man to rest 
in, or there is absolutely nothing. It were a most 
unreasonable supposition that God, after working 
out that splendid series of supernatural events 
which began in Abraham, continued through the 



• THE CATHOLIC CHUECH AND FAITH. ^3 

acts of Moses, the organization of the typical 
Jewish Church, the foretellings of the prophets, 
the incarnation of His Son, His death and resur- 
rection, the establishment of His Church, the de- 
scent of the Holy Ghost upon It, the continued 
existence of His Church, and all the magnificent 
events the latter involves — I say it would be a 
most unreasonable supposition that God, after all 
this, should have left man utterly at sea, with 
nothing definite to believe concerning it all. And, 
furthermore, it were equally unreasonable to sup- 
pose that, after God had thus acted definitely 
through a long series of centuries, and consistent- 
ly unto some definite end, there would not be 
men all along through time, who, in their falli- 
bility, their blindness, their ignorance, arrogance, 
or wilfulness, would fail to understand it all, and 
would misrepresent it either in its parts or as a 
whole. All men must be infallible in order for 
this not to happen. In the structure of affairs we 
are to anticipate that some men can be found, 
either in the past or present, who will deny any 
given part you please of the whole Divine move- 
ment. This only proves man's fallibility, not 
that there is no Catholic faith. Kay, God has not 
cast the most solemn and vital interests of man 
upon the rock of fallible private judgment. It is 
Satan that hath impaled them upon the sharp 
point of that rock and wrecked them. It were 
the wildest extravagance, therefore, were we not 
to limit the phrase " Everywhere, always, and by 



114 THE FAILUEE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

all," in some way, and so take our second legiti- 
mate approximation toward what we seek, name- 
ly — the Catholic faith. It were absurd, then, to 
look to all who call themselves Christians, if we 
would find the Catholic faith. The Catholic 
faith, then, is not the Christian faith as it may 
be held by this, that, or the other fallible man ; 
but it is the faith as it has been held by the infal- 
lible Catholic Church. 

We are forced, then, into the preliminary ques- 
tion, what is the Catholic Church ? In answering 
this we shall be making our third and last approx- 
imation toward the Catholic faith. "Where, then, 
shall I find the Catholic Church ? Now, a church 
is an organism. The Catholic Church must be an 
organism universal over space and universal back 
through time to Christ. Suppose, now, I go to the 
Methodists again. I find there an organism ; but 
in looking back I find it was arranged about the 
time of John Wesley, one hundred years ago. 
Before his day there was no such church organ- 
ism. I pass then to the Presbyterians. There I 
find a different organism. But in looking back I 
find it dates its origin only about three hundred 
years ago. That will not answer, then. Yery 
well, I try the Congregationalists, and, in fact, 
each and all of the modern Protestant organiza- 
tions. Avowedly, they do not any of them run 
back into the dreadful mediaeval times — those 
dark ages. Whatever these Protestant organisms 
may be, then, they must each and all be set aside 



THE CATHOLIC CHUKCH AND FAITH. ^5 

as, at any rate, not Catholic organisms either in 
space or in time, and therefore not Catholic at all. 
Well, suppose I come to our Church. I find it, as 
an organism, with its bishops, priests, and deacons, 
its ritual form of worship, its altars and sacra- 
ments, its Conventions and Synods, its dioceses and 
parishes, running back in the history of England 
into mediaeval times; yea, still farther back 
through the early days of old Britain and up even 
to the Apostles. I seem to strike something 
Catholic here. But be not in haste. Suppose I 
go to the Roman Church. I find that I can trace 
its life back also uninterruptedly to the Apostles. 
Suppose I go to the Greek Church. I find the 
same peculiarity of continued existence back to 
the Apostles there. Here, then, in the Roman, 
Greek, and Anglican Churches, we have reached 
something which it will do at least to pause upon 
for further investigation. 

But have a care. "When we look a little more 
closely into the Anglican organization as a whole, 
and consider it part by part, and when we ex- 
amine the Roman organization in like manner, 
and the Greek, we find that each of the three dif- 
fers from the other two in certain respects. Rome 
has a Pope and a cultus of St. Mary the ever- Vir- 
gin ; these -are not parts of the Greek or of the An- 
glican organisms. Though we have paused here, 
then, though the Catholic Church must be here- 
abouts somewhere, nevertheless, when we have 
reached our Church, we have not yet reached the 



116 THE FAILUKE OF PKOTESTANTISM. 

Catholic Church which we are in search of; w T hen 
we go to Rome we have not yet reached that 
Catholic Church. And equally when we go to the 
Greeks we have not reached the object of our 
search. For we find that neither of these three or- 
ganisms, when taken as a whole, and in all its mi- 
nutiae, is accepted by the other two. Shall we go 
elsewhere then? There is nowhere else to go. 
Let us look, then, more closely still here. 

As we examine, we find that although the 
three, Anglican, Greek, and Roman, thus differ in 
some respects, they are marvellously alike in all 
others. All three have a hierarchy of Bishops, 
priests, and deacons. All have the Holy Altar 
of the Tremendous Sacrifice as the central object 
in their churches. All have robed clergy. All 
have Saints' clays and identical Ecclesiastical 
Seasons. All have a ritual form of worship. All 
have parishes, dioceses, and provinces. All date 
their life back into the first century. All have 
stately ceremonials and processions; the Greeks 
the most glorious, the Romans less, and the An- 
glicans the least. All acknowledge the authority 
of General Councils. All have the same Apostolic 
Succession and the same Sacraments. Here, then, 
I begin to find the Catholic Church. Those few 
peculiarities in which the Greek, the Anglican, 
and the Roman differ from each other, are merely 
local ; all those many peculiarities in which the 
three are at one, shape out for me visibly, solidly, 
and sharply the great Catholic Church; one in 



THE CATHOLIC CHUECH AND FAITH. Hf 

space as in organism, and one in time ; to be found 
equally in Russia, and Italy, and England, and 
America, and Mexico, and Germany, and Brazil 
— everywhere ; to be found, too, in the Nineteenth 
Century and equally in mediaeval time, and also 
in the earliest days, unchanged and unchangeable. 
And every thing in the Anglican, Greek, and 
Roman bodies, which the three hold in common, 
and which has been held in them everywhere, al- 
ways, and by all, is Catholic. Any thing else, 
any peculiarity which we have that Rome and the 
Easterns have not, or which Rome has but the 
Greeks and we have not, or which the Greeks have 
but Rome and we have not, is merely local, par- 
tial, and not Catholic. 

I repeat, for years we have been talking about 
our Church as the Church ; but what is that but 
mere high-and dry Anglicanism ? It is not Catho- 
licity. Equally so Rome has been calling herself 
the Church. Pars pro toto. But what is that but 
mere Romanism, not Catholicism? Just so the 
Greeks have called themselves the Church. As 
well might New York or New Jersey call itself 
the Middle States. There is a popular saying, 
" Rome or Reason." This is simply because peo- 
ple have identified Rome with Catholicity. But a 
part was' never yet the whole. Christ never prom- 
ised to be with a part of the Catholic Church to 
guide it into all truth, any more than He has prom- 
ised to be with a single individual ; it was only 
the whole Church Catholic He promised thus to be 



118 THE FAILURE 0F PROTESTANTISM. 

with. Rome's dicta, therefore, come to us with 
no binding authority. "When the "Whole Church 
speaks then will we yield, and then only, because 
then it will be Christ Jesus speaking. " Rome or 
Reason" is a snare to unwary souls. No, my 
friends; we deny that we must accept either 
Rome or Reason. But substitute in your alterna- 
tive the word " Catholicity " for the word " Rome," 
and make it " Divine Catholicity," or " Human 
Reason," and we will take our stand just there, 
and join issue with you to the end. 

Permit me to close this part of my discourse 
by an illustration of the Catholic Church. We 
will take, for the sake of simplicity, a tree. For 
eight feet above the soil its trunk stands one and 
entire. Somewhere along the ninth foot the trunk 
branches into two main limbs. We will call the 
Eastern the Greek limb, and the Western we will 
call the Latin. Six feet farther out on the Latin 
limb, that is to say, fifteen feet from the ground, 
that Western limb subdivides into two vast 
branches. The outmost of the two we will call 
the Anglican branch, the other we will call the 
Roman. These two branches and the Greek limb 
run up to a height of nineteen and a half feet from 
the ground. There they are, the three great 
boughs, each with its foliage, Anglican at the 
West, Roman in the centre, Greek at the East. 
If now you shield your vision from all but the top 
of the tree, there will appear to you to be three 
disconnected tufts of vegetation, but lo ! the foliage 



THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND FAITH. HQ 

and the flowers are the same. But remove now 
the shield from before your eyes, and behold in 
the whole tree a symbol of the Catholic Church — 
one organism from root to summit. A Church 
that is one like the trunk of that tree for the first 
nine centuries — that branches then into Eastern 
and "Western ; the Western subdividing at the fif- 
teenth century into Anglican and Roman. As a 
fact the unity of the organism is not broken ; in- 
tercommunion between its three parts is simply 
suspended for a time — suspended until that differ- 
entiation shall take place in God's One Church, 
which, as Herbert Spencer so admirably shows, is 
the law of all growth; a differentiation which 
means in its last issue, not a complete sundering 
of the parts, but the eventual unity of multiplex- 
ity, the harmony of coordinate parts. Did it not 
mix the metaphor somewhat, I would go on and 
complete the illustration by supposing sundry 
branches of this tree to be cut off from time to 
time, and inserted into vases of water standing 
round about the great tree. Being without root, 
those cut longest ago are all dead ; while only the 
the most recently cut are green with a deceptive 
life, themselves soon to wither and die. These 
cut branches, standing trunkless and rootless about 
the living tree, would be apt symbols of the 
Protestant sects. 

"We have found, then, what the Catholic Church 
is. Now, the Catholic faith is the faith as held 
by that Catholic Church. " Faith " is different 



120 THE FAILURE OF PBOTESTANTISM. 

from "Doctrine." That which any one of the 
three limbs has as a peculiarity of its own, is not 
the Catholic faith. But all that which the three 
limbs have in common with each other, and in 
common with the trunk below even down to the 
roots, that is Catholic. What faith is it, then, that 
they all hold in common? Not the Thirty-nine 
Articles, for they are merely Anglican ; not the 
Tridentine Decrees, for they are merely Roman ; 
not the decrees of the Synod of Bethlehem, for 
they are merely Greek. But the faith as set forth 
by those great Councils wherein all three took 
part, wherein the whole Church spoke. The 
faith, namely, known as the Niceno-Constantino- 
politan Creed, which all three to-day accept, and 
which the whole Church has from the first ac- 
cepted, even before those councils set that faith in 
its present framework of words. Now, then, we 
are ready to answer the question, what is this 
faith ? It is the Catholic presentment of Chris- 
tianity involving a Church visible as a vital part 
of Christianity. It is fundamentally different 
from the Protestant presentment of Christianity. 
It is not a heterogeneous list of articles about jus- 
tification, and the Bible as the rule of faith, and 
sanctification and election. It is organic as a 
whole ; that is to say, each statement in it grows 
out of the preceding, and, in turn, opens the way 
for the one following. It is not a list of discon- 
nected theological conclusions, hard to understand 
as Spinoza or Ralph W. Emerson. It is, on the 



THE CATHOLIC CHUECH AND FAITH. 121 

other hand, a plain record of historic and other 
fact. It is simply the consecutive history of what 
God has done to save man, in order that every 
man may know what it is and freely take advan- 
tage of it. It is, in brief, a very clear description 
of the course which, in the Divine purpose, Grace 
takes as it starts from God the Father, and reaches 
at last the individual sinner. 

Now let us examine and analyze it. It begins 
by giving us God the Father Almighty, Maker 
of all that is visible and invisible. Its second 
step is to give us God the Son, and the perfect 
unity subsisting between Father and Son in God. 
For the Son is " God of God, and of One Sub- 
stance with the Father." Its third step is the 
statement that the Son came down to earth and 
became man, took our nature upon Him ; and it 
gives us the perfect unity of Godhead and man- 
hood in Jesus Christ ; " came down from heaven, 
was incarnate, was made man." Its fourth step 
gives us the gradual perfecting of Christ's man-, 
hood by suffering : " He suffered, was crucified, 
was buried." Its fifth step gives us the resurrec- 
tion and ascension of the perfected manhood, and 
the giving of the Holy Ghost to His Church. Its 
sixth step gives us the Holy Catholic and Apos- 
tolic Church. Its seventh gives us baptism into 
that Church. Its eighth gives us the remission of 
sins consequent upon that baptism. Its ninth, 
our resurrection. And its tenth and last, our life 
everlasting. 



122 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

Now, what is all this, beloved ? It is all a 
very awful matter ; but it is all a very plain and 
easily understood matter nevertheless. It is sim- 
ply Christianity as distinguished from Rational- 
ism. Any thing less than or outside of it is Ration- 
alism, even though it may surround itself with 
pulpits, and build meeting-houses, and have min- 
isters, and services on Sundays, and read the 
Bible, and preach sermons to its votaries. It is 
simply and solely the history of what God has 
done to save you. It is, in short, the Gospel. It 
is simply and solely a consecutive record, a de- 
scription of the course — that is to say, of the chan- 
nel — which, in the Divine purpose, grace takes as 
it starts from God the Father, and at last reaches 
any individual sinner for his salvation. 

For, first we have God the Father, the source 
of all things — the source, therefore, of that grace. 
Then, second, we have the Son and the Father, 
one in God ; so that the grace in the Father flows 
out uninterruptedly and fills the Son, owing to 
their unity. This is the first step the grace 
reaches in its journey toward you and me. 
Then, third, Godhead and manhood in Jesus 
Christ are one ; and after Christ's manhood is per- 
fected through suffering, the grace in His God- 
head flows out and fills His manhood owing to 
their unity : that manhood rising, ascending, and 
receiving the gifts for us. This is the second 
stage which the grace reaches in its journey from 
God the Father toward you and me, viz., into 



THE CATHOLIC CHUECH AND FAITH. 123 

the man's nature, i. <?., the Soul and Body Natural 
of Christ. Then comes the Holy Catholic Church, 
the Body Mystical of Christ, which is one with 
His Body Natural. Scripture exhausts all met- 
aphor to make us realize how entirely one are 
Christ and His Body Mystical, the Church. At 
Pentecost, the grace which filled His Body Natu- 
ral in Heaven now flowed out and filled His Body 
Mystical, the Church, owing to their unity ; it did 
not descend on individuals, as such, but on the 
Body of the Church. This is the third stage 
which the grace reaches in its journey fromXrod 
the Father toward you and me. The Church on 
earth, the One, Holy, visible, organic, perpetual, 
Apostolic and Catholic Church is its great Reser- 
voir ; not any one part of it alone ; not Borne 
alone, but the whole Church. "Who tells me, then, 
that I must go to Borne, when, as an Anglican, I 
am already in the Catholic Church! Why, I 
simply laugh at his want of comprehension. The 
Catholic Church is the Reservoir on earth. But 
how is that grace to reach and fill you, poor sin- 
ner? The Catholic creed goes on to tell you: 
You, as an individual, must become as one with 
that Church, or Body Mystical of Christ, as It is 
with His Body Natural, as the latter is with His 
Godhead, which is one with the Father. This is 
the last unity in the Gospel of salvation. How is 
this last unity to be effected ? The very next step 
in the creed tells you. You must acknowledge 
the one baptism, and take advantage of it for your- 



124 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

self and for your children with hallelujahs, for the 
grace will now have reached its last designed 
stage, viz., the individual, to work spiritual health 
in him. 

This is the plain history of the whole matter. 
This alone gives any sanction to baptism. This 
alone lifts it from the status of a mere empty 
form. The Catholic Faith then goes on to tell 
you of the Communion of all the Saints together 
in the grace, who are thus made one by baptism 
with the Church, with Christ, with God. Then 
the Creed proceeds as a consequence to tell you 
of the forgiveness of their sins. And as death is 
by sin, death being the sundering of body from 
soul, the Creed gives next, what is consequent 
upon the remission of sin, namely, the resurrection 
of the body ; and closes, coming to its climax, by 
stating the object of all this, namely, your life 
everlasting. 

Now, this is the Catholic faith. This is the 
presentment made to the world by the Catholic 
Church, everywhere, always, and by all, of Chris- 
tianity as a mediatorial system. God the Father 
and the sinner are put wide apart by sin. They 
are to be reconciled — are to be brought to an at- 
one-ment. Something comes in between to do 
this. That is what mediation means ; something 
coming in between ; and that, not to sunder, but 
to unite. That which comes in between the sin- 
ner and God the Father must be real and 'opera- 
live, and not a mere intellectual conception. It 



THE CATHOLIC CHUECH AND FAITH. 125 

must be something that literally grasps hold of us, 
not a mere idea which we grasp and contemplate. 
Now, what is this mediatorial operation, that, in 
God's purposes, comes in between and lays hold 
of us that we may be saved ? Why, who is the 
great Mediator? It is Jesus Christ. But Jesus 
Christ must not be a mere intellectual idea which 
we can be thankful for. As a Mediator He must 
be operative. And how does Christ operate as a 
Mediator ? Why, through His Body Mystical and 
its extensions (its arms, so to speak), which are one 
with Himself, just as I operate through my body 
natural which is one with me. At the very first, 
in Palestine, Christ came and operated in His 
body Natural ; He walked and spoke in it ; but 
ever since then, and out over the earth, and down 
through the centuries, He walketh and speaketh 
and doth operate through His Body Mystical. 
The extensions of that Body Mystical are the 
Ministry and the Sacraments. All this (that is to 
say, Christ Jesus, not as a mere intellectual idea, 
but Christ and all of Him) is the Mediator; 
which speaks to the sinner to-day and every day, 
" I pray you be reconciled to God ; " and which 
then lays hold of the willing but helpless sinner 
by Baptism, and makes him one with the Divine 
Life, setting him in It like a graft into a tree, and 
then feeds him with the Divine Life through the 
Blessed Eucharist. All this, I say, is what the 
Catholic Faith declares to be "Christianity, the 
Doctrine of Mediation." Now, all other systems, 



126 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

which deprive Christ of His Body Mystical, which 
preach a half-Christ and not the whole Christ, 
which preach a broken, bruised, mutilated Christ, 
which cut off from Him the Apostolic Ministry 
and Sacraments, that are the very arms by which 
through the centuries and all over the earth He 
mercifully lays hold of and folds sinners into at- 
one-ment with Himself and the Father, and feeds 
them with His Life, all other, that is to say, all 
Protestant schemes, are but schemes of incipient 
Rationalism, which have so wounded the Gospel 
truth and fact of Mediation, that it soon dies of 
the wounds it has received even in the house of 
its Protestant friends. All the nursing, ail the 
anxiety, all the watchings of Protestant, Calvinist 
and Armenian, will not save the doctrine of Chris- 
tian Mediation, after it is thus mutilated, from 
sinking into the death of Unitarianism. The 
Catholic Gospel of salvation is simple. Be bap- 
tized into the Church, for that Church Catholic is 
one with Christ, and Christ is one with the Father. 
Of course, I need not qualify this statement by 
saying, that it supposes the baptized man will 
faithfully use the Means of Grace made over to 
him by God through the Church. The whole is 
summed up in this, viz. : " The union of God and 
man, begun in the person of Christ, is continued 
and extended in the Church, which is the Body 
of Christ ; the Church acting through its Ministry 
and Sacraments." 

I have but time to contrast in a word the 



THE CATHOLIC CHUECH AND FAITH. 127 

Protestant Gospel of salvation with all this. The 
Protestant is told to stand outside of this really 
operative work of Mediation, and to agonize as an 
individual until an " ictus falls from behind the 
stars," until grace comes in the fashion of an in- 
visible streak of lightning out of the far Heaven, 
and pierces his individual breast. But is this 
Mediation ? Is this CJmstianity ? What is it, 
after all, but the sheerest Immediation between 
the individual and God ? And, brethren, no sub- 
jective intellectual notion which the individual 
may, at the same time, hold in his brain about 
Christ as some historic and distant being, who did 
something to make Himself somehow a Mediator, 
will save it from its Immediation. "When you set 
a hard practical fact against a mere intellectual 
idea, the fact is always too much for the idea, and 
eventually drives it off, and holds the whole field 
to itself. And this is one reason why Protestantism 
invariably gravitates down into Unitarianism and 
avowed Rationalism. Now, these people have the 
supposed fact of a practical system of Immedia- 
tion between God and the individual working all 
the time ; what wonder if their mere notion of 
mediation vanishes at last before the stern reality, 
and they all sink, victims of Satan, into a denial 
at last of every thing distinctively Christian? 
What is Protestantism, then, but Rationalism — 
the system of Immediation, concealed in a Chris- 
tian cloak. It is my part, as your pastor, watch- 



128 THE FAILUEE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

ing for your souls, to strip off that cloak and show 
the demon within. 

I have spoken of the Catholic Faith as being 
the Faith as held by the Catholic Church. I have 
described to you what that Faith is. It is per- 
haps not from the purpose of my subject to re- 
mind you that, besides the Faith as set down in 
the Creed, there is much else that is common to 
the Catholic Church. Her universal yearning for 
the faithful dead ; Her universal prayers for their 
joyful resurrection — that they "may have their 
perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and 
soul, in God's eternal and everlasting glory;" 
" Remember not, Lord, our offences, nor the of- 
fences of our forefathers ; " " Most humbly be- 
seeching Thee to grant that, by the merits and 
death of Thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith 
in His Blood, we and all Thy whole Church may 
obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits 
of His Passion ; " Her universal love for the 
Saints ; Her universal realization of the presence 
of Angels, not only round about Her altars at the 
Eucharist, but round about us as guardians, to 
" be our succor and defence on earth ; " Her uni- 
versal tenderness for the confessing penitent ; Her 
universal declarations of absolution — " Receive 
ye the Holy Ghost," the Anglican Church says to 
each of Her priests at ordination, " whose sins 
thou dost forgive, they are forgiven ; and whose 
sins thou dost retain, they are retained;" — the 
separateness that marks and the glory that sur- 



THE CATHOLIC CHUECH AND FAITH. 129 

rounds universally Her altars. People sometimes 
say, when they enter one of our churches, " Why, 
it looks like a Roman Catholic church ! " As a 
matter of course, beloved ; why should it not ? 
It is not intended that two brothers should not 
look at least like each other. It were very strange 
if they did not. Still, brethren, do not identify a 
gorgeous ritual, befitting the presence of our tre- 
mendous Sacrifice Christ Jesus, with a Roman 
ritual. The Anglican is not the Roman Church, 
though both are Catholic. Two brothers, though 
they may be alike, are by no means the same. 
There are points in Rome which She has added 
to the Catholic system, but which we, as Angli- 
cans, and which equally the Greeks, are uncom- 
promisingly opposed to, which belong not to this 
age, and which must be abolished before inter- 
communion can take place. But, nevertheless, a 
gorgeous ritual is in itself Catholic, and, so long 
as it symbolizes the Catholic verities, and no Ro- 
man errors, is surely in harmony with our Church 
as a visible and symbolic Body. While we do 
not propose to be Roman, we do not hesitate, not 
only to be, but even to seem to be, Catholic. 
Like Lazarus, our Church has been bound in the 
grave-clothes of Protestantism and prejudice ; but 
the Lord, Her loving Master, hath come, and, as 
Her Marys and Her Marthas stand weeping, He 
calls Her forth, and utters the glad mandate, 
" Loose Her, and let Her go ! " 

Before I close, perhaps I may be pardoned if 



130 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

I say a word or two touching the able leading 
article in the Daily World, the ingenious com- 
munication in the same journal signed " Roman 
Catholic," and the leading article in the Christian 
Observer. Long-settled prejudices and cherished- 
feelings are never touched by hostile hand with- 
out danger of exciting passion and vituperation. 
And I desire to express in some public way my 
obligations for the calm and manly spirit shown 
by each of the three writers. Of course, it is not 
my purpose, during the delivery of these sermons, 
to answer editorial articles and anonymous news- 
paper correspondence. There would be no end to 
the discussion. Still, with your permission, I will 
reserve to myself the privilege of lingering a 
moment for a brief remark on each of the articles 
mentioned above. 

The World admits the first main charge in the 
first sermon, namely, that Protestantism has failed 
to reach the masses. It declines, perhaps very 
properly, to take the responsibility of deciding 
one way or the other as to whether Protestantism 
leads logically to infidelity, which was our second 
main charge. It says, however, that, if Protes- 
tantism " be not in the condition of the Church 
of Sardis and the Church of the Laodiceans," as 
those Churches are depicted in the third chapter 
of Revelation, " it is time they proved it ; " and 
that " silence and inaction are no longer safe for 
them." The only remedy which the World sug- 
gests for the evils charged is, for each large parish 



THE CATHOLIC CHUECH AND FAITH. \%l 

to sell its church, and land, and, with, the proceeds, 
build several inexpensive churches, one of which 
shall be for its own use, and the others to be free 
to all comers. I have only to remark on this, 
that it is an admirable and Catholic suggestion, 
full of common sense ; but that, nevertheless, I 
fail to see how it would touch the real difficulty. 
For, after all, it would be the self-same old Prot- 
estantism that would be preached in those free 
churches, which, as a concealed Rationalism, has 
been abandoned for the genuine article by the In- 
tellect of the Age, and which has disgusted the 
masses for many reasons besides its abominable 
system of " hired pews." 

The writer signing himself "Roman Cath- 
olic " also admits the gravity of the charges. But 
he claims that the Rationalism of the day is not 
the logical result of Protestantism ^r se, but only 
of its Lutheranism and its Calvinism; and the 
cure he suggests is, for Protestantism to discharge 
Lutheranism and Calvinism out of itself. This is 
just precisely what I claim the Intellect of the 
Age has been doing ; and lo, the phenomenon — 
with Lutheranism and Calvinism emptied out, 
you have no Protestantism left ! Thus, it seems 
to me, the cure kindly suggested by " Roman 
Catholic " is, to kill the patient. Terrible satirist, 
he sees the point ! 

The editor of the Christian Observer first de- 
nies the charge that German, English, Swiss, and 
]STew-England Rationalism is the outgrowth of 



132 THE FAILUKE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

Protestantism. He then attempts to prove this 
denial by asserting that Romanism also has made 
infidels in Italy and France. I do not deny the 
latter fact ; indeed, I have expressly stated it. 
But I fail to see how Romanism leading to in- 
fidelity proves that Protestantism does not. Sup- 
pose that I should assert that sugar-coated strych- 
nine kills, and you attempt to prove that it will 
not by asserting that something else will — why, 
I should simply have nothing to say in reply. 
As for the balance of this paragraph of the article 
under notice, I am not disposed to take an undue 
advantage : it was evidently written in haste. I 
simply leave the writer to the tender mercies of 
his sarcastic friend, " Roman Catholic." If " Ro- 
man Catholic " can prove that the , Observer is 
wrong, then so much the worse for the Observer ; 
if not, then so much the better for me and the 
Anglican Catholic Church. The editor of the 
Observer then goes on to deny that the Roman 
Catholic Church reaches the masses. I might 
leave him to settle this point with the Daily 
World. But I will at least say that he has, per- 
haps, forgotten that when the mob raged through 
our streets, defying all the power of police and 
soldiery, the lifted finger of the Archbishop 
calmed and dispersed it in an hour. He has, per- 
haps, forgotten that every one of the six, eight, or 
ten Masses said at every Roman Catholic Church 
of a Sunday morning is thronged with worship- 
pers, and every mass with a different congrega- 



THE CATHOLIC CHUECH AND FAITH. 133 

tion. " But," the editor goes on to say, " how 
much better are the crowds for it ? " That's not 
for me to say. If his insinuation be correct, then 
that is a difficulty between " Eoman Catholic " 
and him. I've got nothing to do with it. My 
point is, that, whether for good or for evil, Eome 
gets at the masses, and Protestantism does not, 
and cannot, either in Romish or in Protestant 
lands. And precisely for this reason, namely, 
that Eome presents to the masses the real Christ, 
and so goes to them with authority, while Protes- 
tantism presents them with a mere intellectual 
notion about Christ ; and the " authority," instead 
of being on the side of Protestantism as she ap- 
proaches the masses, is avowedly on the side of 
the private judgment of the masses, which may 
reject that intellectual notion or not. " How 
much better are the masses for all Eome ? " cries 
the Observer. It never suggested itself to the 
Observer to ask, how much worse the masses 
might be but for Eome. The editor then pro- 
ceeds to show how Protestantism gets at the 
masses. " Look at all your organized benevo- 
lence," cries he ; " the organized benevolence of 
ISTew York is a fruit of Protestantism." The 
coolness of this statement is somewhat admirable. 
"Private Judgment," and "Every man his own 
Priest, " and " Divine Foreknowledge, " and 
" Final Perseverance," and " Infant Damnation," 
the cause of all the organized benevolence of New 
York ! Perhaps there are no human hearts un- 



134 THE FAILUEE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

derneatli doubting heads in the city of New York ; 
perhaps there are no natural tender sympathies ; 
perhaps there are not hundreds and hundreds of 
merchants who never enter a church from one 
month's end to another, but who yet put their 
hands in their pockets constantly, and pour out 
thousands at the call of want. , Perhaps, for- 
sooth, Protestantism is responsible too for all the 
deeds of charity that were done in ancient 
Greece and Eome. And then again, perhaps, 
there are no vast hospitals, and asylums, and 
homes in this city belonging to the Roman 
Church. "The organized benevolence of New 
York is how Protestantism goes down to the 
masses," cries the Observer. Even should I admit 
that Protestantism, per se, is the mother of any 
organized benevolence, there is still the heavy 
charge behind, that, while it is mending legs, it 
is losing souls. The Observer comprehends my 
position, and I respect the ability it has displayed 
in fighting for a losing cause ; but I do not know 
that I have any thing in particular to say con- 
cerning the Baltimore Episcopal Methodist, or 
the Protestant Churchman, the New- York Meth- 
odist, or the Philadelphia Roman Catholic Uni- 
verse, and so I pass on. I trust you will not fall 
into the popular error of thinking that electricity 
or the sewing-machine is Protestantism. 

What the world needs, I repeat, is neither the 
sugar-coated strychnine of Protestantism, nor the 
strychnine-coated sugar of Romanism, but Cath- 



THE CATHOLIC CHUECH AND FAITH. 135 

olicity, the Catholic faith, and the Catholic sys- 
tem, and the Catholic spirit. 

All this opposition to a return to this Catholic 
faith and spirit and customs, all this struggle, for 
instance, against one of the mere symptoms of 
returning health, namely, the clothing of worship 
with its fitting splendor, is but the old story of Mrs. 
Partington and her broom. Some persons are anx- 
ious that canons fee passed to stop ritual. If such 
canons be passed, of course they will be obeyed. 
But it is quite immaterial whether they are passed 
or not. If not, then the stream with its ever- 
gathering waters will flow. If passed, then such 
canons will only be a dam in the way, and 
there will be a gathering of the floods behind it, 
which, in God's good time, will sweep off and 
utterly away both the dam and they that guard 
it. So futile is it to attempt to stem the pur- 
poses of Almighty God. 



VII. 

REPLY TO STRICTURES IN THE RELIG- 
IOUS PRESS AND FROM THE PULPIT. 

" And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive 
many." — Matt. xxiv. 11. 

The articles and sermons purporting to be re- 
plies, either direct or indirect, to the charges made 
from this place against Protestantism, are so ex- 
traordinary as to demand at least brief notice. 
Six weeks have now passed, but, although there 
has been a very manifest uneasiness among the 
Puritans, and a good deal written and said, it is 
almost needless to remark, not a solitary charge 
has been met, nor a solitary argument answered. 
The first canon which reviewers should observe is, 
to understand that which they are attempting to 
criticise. 

Three distinct charges have been made, viz. : 
As a religious system, Protestantism fails to get 
at the masses ; nay, there were vast regions of 
country where its fundamental principles (to wit, 
private judgment, and the dogma of a church in- 
visible only) took deep and general root ; but in 



EEPLY TO PEOTESTANT STEICTUKES. 137 

those countries it has absolutely lost its hold on 
the masses it once swayed ; therefore it is a fail- 
ure. Secondly — The logical issue of Protestant- 
ism is Rationalism, i. e., Protestantism logically 
destroys Christianity ; therefore it is a failure, 
and, worse, it is a delusion, a snare to souls, a 
heresy. Thirdly — In the lands where it has pre- 
vailed, as in Germany, parts of Switzerland, New 
England, and elsewhere, the historical event has 
substantiated the logical anticipation ; for those 
lands are to-day honeycombed with infidelity ; 
therefore Protestantism is a failure, and people 
should wake up to the fact, abandon it, and look 
for something better. To these charges I have 
added the subordinate statement that Pome also 
has failed in some respects ; but I assert that Her 
failures are not on account of Her Catholicity, 
since they can be traced directly to those very 
points where She has perverted the ancient Catho- 
licity, or overlaid it with foreign and incongruous 
peculiarities. Catholicity is divine; and expe- 
rience shows us that it suits all centuries, that it 
is adapted to and can co-exist harmoniously with 
every form of political government, from the ab- 
solute monarchy to the republic, and with ever/ 
degree of enlightenment, from the lowest to the 
highest. Romanism, on the other hand, is human 
in its origin ; it sprang in some of its features out 
of the necessities of the Middle Ages and their 
feudalism, and is not in harmony with modern 
conditions and our advancing intelligence. 



138 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

3sTow, these three charges against Protestant- 
ism have not been met ; and, if I am to judge by 
letters from perfect strangers, of which I am daily 
in receipt, the public are beginning to see that 
they have not been met, and to inquire what the 
matter is. Protestants cannot turn this impor- 
tant subject aside with a mere wave of the hand, 
and a vain attempt to prove that electricity is 
Protestantism. The subject is one of too deep 
moment for this. It is squarely up before the 
public, and unprejudiced people are thinking 
about it. Silence is dangerous ; and these pre- 
tended replies, whether direct or indirect, that do 
not touch the real matter at issue, are fatal. 
They only exhibit the weakness of the cause. 

Here, then, are the three distinct charges. 
How do these answerers and defenders of Protes- 
tantism meet the solemn issue ? Why, all of 
them in one way. First, by showing that Pome 
has failed. Of course She has failed. But what 
has that to do with the charges ? That is a diffi- 
culty between Pome and them ; not between us 
and them. "We have stated that the Roman Cath- 
olic Church is a failure in so far as She is Poman, 
and there we leave Her. "We set up Catholicity 
for the cure, not Rome. But the difficulty with 
these men is, that they do not seem to compre- 
hend that there is any other kind of Christianity 
except Protestantism, and Romanism; and they 
think that, if w r e say Protestantism fails, we 
mean, of course, that everybody should take to 



BEPLY TO PEOTESTANT STEICTUEES. 139 

Rome. They do not comprehend that there is a 
third presentment of Christianity, viz., Catholi- 
city, with nothing distinctively Roman in it, and 
nothing distinctively "Protestant" either. The 
fact is, that, what with Rome and what with 
Protestantism, God's old Catholicity has been un- 
der a cloud, and has not gained the general ear 
of the people in America. But they are begin- 
ning at last to arouse to it, and to understand it, 
if their leaders do not. This agitation is start- 
ing inquiry among new thousands, and the day 
is not distant when many more even than now 
will say to these answerers, " Tour tirades against 
Romanism will not do ; you do not meet the 
point ; you must give us something different from 
that, if you expect to command our respect, to say 
nothing of our convictions." I will tell you, 
brethren, what the matter is : The difficulty is, 
the solemn charges cannot be met ; they are too 
patent for denial, hence all this anger and floun- 
dering. 

Then, secondly, attempt is made to identify 
Protestantism with the Nineteenth Century, and 
to palm that identification off as an answer. 
" Look at all the light of to-day," say they ; " the 
commerce, the arts, the arms, the battle of Sado- 
wa, the Spanish Revolution ! Why, here is a man 
that calls all that a failure ! " But, brethren, it 
will not do. Nobody has charged that the Nine- 
teenth Century is a failure. Protestantism is not 
the Nineteenth Century. No one has charged 



140 THE FAILUKE OF PKOTESTANTISM. 

that the needle-gun is a failure, or the sewing- 
inachine, or the steamboat. The charge is not 
that the Nineteenth Century is a failure, but that 
something that exists in the Nineteenth Century 
has failed. No one has charged that freedom is a 
failure. On the contrary, the distinct assertion 
is made that true Catholicity, in the days of 
Henry VIII., rose against Home in the interest 
of freedom, struck down Her Papal tyranny over 
political government, and Her tyranny over the 
intellect. And, by the way, the Anglican Church 
is to-day declaring its independence also of Prot- 
estant tyranny ; and in England the tyrant Prot- 
estantism is mobbing Her for it. The liberty of 
Puritanism is to-day just what it was in Roger 
Williams's time, viz., perfect liberty for every one 
to believe just as the Puritan believes, or take the 
consequences. I tell you, my friends, we have 
liberty in spite of, and not because of, Protestant- 
ism. A man is at liberty to break down Chris- 
tianity so long as he does so on the Protestant 
principle of private judgment, but a man is not 
at liberty to defend Christianity on Catholic prin- 
ciples. If he dares to, it is in the midst of angry 
scowls, social excision, and Protestant mobs. 

But, to return — the distinction is, that in the 
Sixteenth Century true Catholicity struck for a 
true and guarded freedom in religion, while Prot- 
estantism struck for a ruinous license in religion. 
The charge is, that that license is a failure ; that 
it hath wrecked the Bible, the Church, the Min- 



EEPLY TO PEOTESTANT STKICTUKES. 141 

istry, the Sacraments, and the Apostolic Faith. 
Within the wide, unalterable walls of that Faith 
there is a vast, almost a fearful, freedom touching 
doctrine allowed by God's Catholicity. Freedom 
in government, in thought, in action, is as dear to 
Catholicity as it is to any one. But the charge 
is, that that rampant license of Scripture inter- 
pretation, whereby the most ignorant are egged 
on to rush in where angels dare not tread, is an 
awful mistake, and has ended in the ruin of thou- 
sands of souls. This identification of the Nine- 
teenth Century with Protestantism, which came 
out of the less-enlightened Sixteenth, and which 
is one of the mere accompaniments of modern 
times, will not do ; and the public are seeing it, 
and saying it. Why, do these men really mean 
to assert that not only modern times, but every 
thing in modern times, is a success % that there 
have been no mistakes made in religion, in philos- 
ophy, in any thing ? that modern times, forsooth, 
are immaculate ? that our fathers and we are in- 
fallible ? that Protestantism, because it belongs to 
modern times, is a success ? Their fallacy proves 
too much ; for then is the Comtean School of 
Positivism a success ; then is Emersonian Panthe- 
ism a success ; then is Spiritualism, and Parker- 
ism, and Fourierism, and Mormonism, and Agra- 
rianism, a success. 

But, thirdly, these answerers, still avoiding 
the charges, attempt to cloud the matter by lead- 
ing the public to suppose that Protestantism is 



142 THE EAILUKE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

the cause of all the glories of the Nineteenth 
Century. What ! the religious dogma that says, 
" Away with God's Apostolic Yisible Church, 
and let every man be his own Church, his own 
priest, his own interpreter of the Bible, and his 
own judge as to what the Bible is, or whether 
there is any Bible at all," that fatal religious dog- 
ma the cause, forsooth, of all this science and 
modern light ? My brethren, it will not do ; and 
people are seeing that, too, and saying it. But, 
if Protestantism be not the cause, do you ask me, 
what is ? The real cause of the light and advance 
of modern times is not a theological dogma. But 
it is a general awakening of mind, which began 
far back in the middle ages, four hundred years 
before the Protestant dogma was ever thought of 
— an awakening of mind, of taste, of the genius 
of invention, which, abandoning the rude struc- 
tures of the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth 
Centuries, brought out, long before the 'Conti- 
nental Reformation, the most ornate specimens of 
architecture the world ever saw; which, in the 
Eleventh Century, invented paper, and, before 
John Calvin and Martin Luther ever saw the 
light, produced the art of printing — paper and 
printing, the two conservers of human intelli- 
gence ; which, in the Twelfth CJentury, devised 
banks of exchange and discount, and not long 
after invented gunpowder, conceived the idea of 
the post-office, and discovered and applied the 
principle of magnetism in the mariner's compass 



EEPLY TO PEOTESTANT STEICTUEES. 143 

thus giving such, a start to commerce and mag 
nificent geographical discovery as they had never 
had before; which, in the Tenth Century, con- 
trived clocks; which invented painting in oil- 
colors before Luther was born ; which, in the 
Thirteenth Century, introduced astronomy and 
geometry into Europe, and not long after brought 
in algebra, and fostered all three sciences ; which 
discovered America a quarter of a century before 
the Continental " Reformation," so called, opened ; 
which, centuries before Luther, produced a Dante, 
and a Petrarch, and a Chaucer, and a Boccaccio, 
and a Roger Bacon — Roger Bacon, who, three 
centuries before his successor, Lord Francis Ba- 
con, announced to the world the very method of 
legitimate investigation in accordance with which 
all modern science is pursued, and upon which 
Lord Bacon afterward built his fame — Roger Ba- 
con of the so-called dark ages, who had this im- 
mense advantage over the Bacon of the Sixteenth 
Century, in that he personally put his method 
into practice. 

But I will pause. The cause of the light and. 
advance of modern times was a general awaken- 
ing of mind in Western Europe, which began clear 
back in the Tenth Century ; which brought out all 
this that I have mentioned and more ; which has 
been bringing out new blessings to man ever since ; 
which has rolled out and up a thousand things — 
most of them good, some of them bad ; which 
rolled up, after a while, the Protestant dogma for 



144 THE FAILUEE OF PBOTESTANTISM. 

one of its many and varied productions ; and which 
is rolling up to-day the solemn presentment of 
that dogma and of its fruits at the bar of this en- 
lightened century, that they may be put on their 
trial. 

And now these answerers are trying to make 
people think that this Protestantism is not one of 
the heterogeneous mixture of things that awaken- 
ing mind, in its power but also in its fallibility, 
turned up (and that, four hundred years after 
awakening mind had begun to produce its marvel- 
lous fruits), but that it is, forsooth, the underlying 
cause of all the good of modern times — gunpowder, 
glass, paper, printing, painting, telescopes, astron- 
omy, algebra, Magna Charta, and every thing else ; 
— a mother producing children before she was 
born ! Protestantism was but one of the effects 
of the general awakening of mind, not its cause ; 
and our charge is, that it happened to be one of 
the bad effects — not in that it struck at Roman 
error ; but because it sought to destroy Catholic 
truth also. Why, brethren, awakening mind 
must have been infallible not to have made at 
least some few mistakes. Let these gentlemen 
meet the charge, and not try to escape by raising 
a cloud of issues, which are so clearly false and 
foreign to the subject, that they are beginning to 
be remarked as such. 

" Where Protestantism prevails, there every 
thing prevails which blesses mankind," it is said. 
Nay, it should have been said, that where awak- 



EEPLY TO PROTESTANT STRICTURES. 145 

ened mind prevails, there thousands of things 
prevail which bless mankind, and some things 
which are not blessings. "Where Protestantism 
prevails, indeed! Why, yon might as well say 
where Spiritualism prevails, or Unitarianism, there 
every thing prevails which blesses mankind, and 
think that yon have proved thereby that Spiritual- 
ism is a success ; you might as well say where in- 
fidelity prevails, every thing prevails that blesses 
mankind, and think you have proved that infideli- 
ty is a success. For infidelity prevails throughout 
lands that once were Protestant, and in those lands 
the skeptics very much outnumber the believers. 

And now for a very subordinate point in the 
connection. It is charged that Rome has opposed 
the advance of science; that Copernicus was ex- 
communicated, and Galileo imprisoned. That is 
all true, and so much the worse for Rome, say we. 
That is something she must settle. But the infer- 
ence intended to be drawn is, that Protestant 
religionists have been great friends of science. I 
do not say that true Catholics have been blame- 
less in the premises either. But at any rate, it 
would be a little queer if those who hurl this mis- 
sive at Rome should be found dwelling in houses 
of glass in this very year 1868. Ask Herbert Spen- 
cer, and Max Miiller, and John Stuart Mill, and 
Darwin, and Lyell, and Huxley, and Professor 
Tyndall, and they will tell you — (some of them, 
indeed, have said, to an acquaintance of mine), 



146 THE FAILUKE OF PEOTESTANTISM. 

that they get from Protestant religionists nothing 
but opposition in their efforts to unearth new 
scientific truth ; and that their only sympathizers 
in the religions world are minds that have been 
trained in the Anglo-Catholic Church. "When it 
was announced that the " world was round and 
like a ball," Rome resisted. "When it was an- 
nounced that "the earth moved round the sun," 
Rome resisted. When it was announced that 
" the world was not made in six natural days," 
Protestantism resisted, and said it was an infidel 
statement. When it was announced that " the 
flood could not have covered the whole earth," 
where was Protestantism ? Why, her divines were 
resisting. She didn't shut the bold scientists up 
in prison, for that had gone out of fashion. But 
she did the nearest thing to it that she could. 
And now, to-day, when Darwin tells us that 
" Creation was and is by development," where are 
the overwhelming majority of Protestant divines ? 
Why, in the opposition, denouncing Darwin. 
When Lyell and De Perthes tell us " man has ex- 
isted one or two hundred thousand years," where 
are these Protestant divines that are such friends 
of science? Protestant religionists stand to-day 
in the attitude of open resistance to the advance 
of science, and centuries hence the finger of Histo- 
ry will be pointed at them, as they to-day justly 
point the finger at Rome. It is even so, friends ; 
we have liberty in spite of and not because of the 
spirit of Protestant religionists. Liberty in reli- 



EEPLY TO PKOTESTANT STRICTUKES. 14,7 

gion, liberty in government, liberty in speech, in 
thought, in the press, we have it because of awak- 
ening mind and not because of that spirit which 
Protestantism seems to create among men. Rome 
and Protestantism are equally tyrants. It is 
awakening mind that has been fighting for its 
rights on the domain both of doctrine and of 
science ; yes, and of political government too, 
ever since the Tenth Century. All the way along 
from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Century it fought 
Pome, and all the way down from the Fifteenth 
to the Nineteenth it has been fighting Protestant- 
ism. When Protestantism threw off Roman ty- 
ranny, she only brought in another tyranny— a 
doctrinal tyranny. You must believe thus and 
thus as to the atonement, and justification, and 
regeneration, and election, or you are out of the 
pale of the Gospel. As I have sat by the dying 
bed of a sweet spirit that had, for years, been filled 
with the love of God and the love of man, but 
had known little of theology, and as I have heard, 
from those standing around, the metaphysical Prot- 
estant doctrine and the rigid notion pressed, and 
as I have seen the dying man turning his eyes 
from one to another, annoyed — made timorous at 
the edge of life — anxious to do right — striving to 
apprehend in accordance with the iron dogma, I 
have felt how cutting and galling were the chains 
of all this doctrinal tyranny which Protestantism 
brought in. 

The Continental Reformation, with all its 



148 THE FAILUEE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

claimed liberty, was born with, the spirit of intol- 
erance in it, and that spirit has marked its career 
ever since. Its intolerance began in that violent 
man Luther, a man w T ho uttered such language 
concerning most sacred things as cannot be re- 
peated to ears polite. I know that Reformers are 
made out of ragged material ; that they are always 
tough men to meet. But that is neither here nor 
there so far as our point is concerned. Thus its 
intolerance began. It continued In Calvin, than 
whom a more tyrannical spirit can hardly be con- 
ceived. It slew Mary Queen of Scots, Strafford, 
and Laud, and martyred Charles the First. It 
went in the Puritans to Holland, and was so cross- 
grained there that when it sailed away the Dutch- 
men praised God for the merciful deliverance. 
It took ship and threatened to come to New York, 
and would have landed here had not the citizens 
found means to bribe the captain of the Mayflower 
to land his uncomfortable freight by mistake 
somewhere else. In Cromwell it would not be 
content to enjoy its own Congregationalism qui- 
etly ; no, but it broke into the Church of England ; 
it stripped off the garments from our clergy ; with 
axes and hammers it broke down our carved work. 
It hanged witches. It drove out Roger "Williams 
from its settlements into the inhospitable forests 
of Rhode Island for the liberty of belief which he 
claimed. In the Quakers it would not be content 
to enjoy silent meetings, but must go in and dis- 
turb the Puritan meetings with not only violent 



EEPLY TO PEOTESTANT STRICTURES. 149 

but even indecent behavior. And then, turning 
round, in the Puritans it hanged the Quakers. In 
the eighteenth century it pelted John Wesley 
through the streets and broke up his meetings. 
In the nineteenth century it mobs our priests 
while at their solemn services in the east of Lon- 
don ; and as for our Sisters of Mercy, for the crime 
those gentle women have been guilty of in de- 
voting themselves to lives of charity and prayer, 
to watchings in pestilential hospitals, it attacks 
them in the streets with missiles till they fly for 
their lives. Every mail from England briugs us 
accounts of the tyranny and intolerance of Prot- 
estantism ; while in America, not content with 
staying in its own houses of worship, it goes out 
of its way into one of ours, and as the priest stands 
performing his function at the altar, it speaks out 
in feminine tone of voice, so loud as to be heard for 
four or five pews around, " I would like to bang that 
man's back with my parasol." I tell you, my 
friends, we have liberty, and always have had it, 
in spite of and not because of Protestantism. 

Some of my beloved brethren, who entirely 
agree with me, regret that I have used the word 
"Protestantism." They would have preferred 
" Sectarianism." But we never can cure that word 
"Protestant" of the general meaning it conveys 
to nine minds out of ten ; that is to say, opposi- 
tion not only to all that is Roman in Roman 
Catholicism, but also to all that is distinctively 
Catholic, both in the Roman and Anglican 



150 THE FAILUKE OF PKOTESTANTISM. 

Churches. The vast majority use the word " Prot- 
estant" in that sense, and so its meaning is fixed. 
"When, therefore, we apply the word to ourselves, 
we apply it in a non-natural senke. And what is 
the use of our perpetually using it for ourselves 
and perpetually explaining our peculiar meaning 
of it to persons who will not understand ? The 
word is a hopeless case. Let the sects have it — 
particularly as w T e are a Catholic Church. 

Some of my brethren regret that I have spoken 
so plainly. "We want peace, say they. Ah, what 
we want is not peace but truth. " But," say they, 
"you will frighten away some." My friends, we 
have pursued this timid policy too long. "While 
we have been trying to lure the few easily-fright- 
ened ones into the Church by reticence, that reti- 
cence has been standing by and allowing thou- 
sands to go down en masse into infidelity. Be- 
sides, let the lines be drawn. Let the world 
understand that we are not with the Protestant 
sects. Until we do this frankly, our sister Churches 
of the Catholic world cannot be expected to look 
upon us with other than a suspicious eye ; nor 
(what is of vast importance) will we be in position 
to command their attention and respect, as we 
stand our ground, and demand of them to modify 
their local systems — to cast off their errors to such 
extent as will enable a restoration of intercom- 
munion. We are twenty millions ; let us be true 
to ourselves, and we shall, if not in this century, 
perhaps in the next, be the means of reforming the 
whole Catholic Church. 



VIII. 

THE LATE PRACTICAL ADMISSIONS OF 
THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM, BY 
PROTESTANTS THEMSELVES. 

Fkom what has been said and printed during 
the past week,* some of it having been written 
with direct reference, and some of it having been 
publicly said, without any reference (at least any 
avowed reference) to what has been laid before 
you from this place, I suppose there are many of 
you who regard the first campaign of the war as 
about closed. Still it may not be without interest 
to look a little at the results. 

During the week a National Christian Con- 
vention of Protestant divines and laymen assem- 
bled in this city, and were in session several days. 
Some of their proceedings are of interest to us in 
this connection. In noticing these proceedings, I 
will not recapitulate the charges that have been 

* These Discourses were preached in Christ Church, New York, 
during October and November, 1868. This closing Sermon was 
delivered on the evening of the last Sunday after Trinity (Novem- 
ber 22), 1868. 



152 THE FAILUKE OF PBOTESTANTISM. 

made against Protestantism. I trust to your mem- 
ories. But with regard to those charges, it seems 
that, whatever may have been urged in the past 
few weeks against our position, Protestants them- 
selves have already been arousing to the sad truth 
of what we have charged. For, why was this 
Convention held? It was to discuss ways and 
means for the cure of evils. What were some of 
those evils ? We will see anon. The Convention 
presented the melancholy spectacle of a body of 
people guilty of a mistake, awakening to the re- 
sults of that mistake, but utterly oblivious that 
those results were directly traceable to funda- 
mental errors inherent in the system to which 
they still cling ; utterly oblivious to the fact that 
the evils, to discuss which they met, have not re- 
sulted from the bad application of a good system, 
but from the untiring application of a bad system. 
Let us see what their circular letter conven- 
ing the body says. I will not read it all, only 
extracts. The object of the Convention was, it 
seems, to consider, among other things, " the in- 
difference of the multitudes to the claims of the 
Gospel ; " " the organized forms of attack on the 
authority of God's word ; " " the inroads of an 
infidel philosophy reared upon the foundation of 
universal skepticism" And the circular goes on 
to say that the utmost energy is demanded, "lest 
the high vantage-ground God has so graciously 
given His people in this country he stolen from 
them" 



PE ACTIO AL ADMISSIONS OF ITS FAILUKE. 153 

Well, there it is ; what more, pray, can we 
ask ? "Whether with any reference to us or not 
makes no difference, the truth of the main charges, 
every one of them, is admitted in an official docu- 
ment of a national Protestant body. And several 
hundred of the leaders convene to see what can be 
done about it. Notwithstanding all that has been 
said against us, here is the ugly fact that Protes- 
tants are alarmed ; that they are arousing to the 
truth that they have lost their hold both upon the 
intellect and upon the masses of the day ; they 
feel that both are slipping away from them, and 
that peculiar vigilance is demanded on their part 
lest they utterly lose the vantage-ground they once 
had entirely. Indeed, beloved, it is a very note- 
worthy fact that both Rome and Protestantism 
have lost the men of the day. Their adherents 
are mostly women. There must be an intellectual 
feebleness about both systems. And there is an- 
other very noteworthy fact, that wherever true 
Catholicity has been brought out it gains more 
men than women. I do not say that women are 
not susceptible to it. In the end there is no doubt 
that the masculine and the feminine elements 
of its adherents will be equalized, but at present 
more men surrender to it than women. The fact 
is, whatever we may say of the women of the day, 
there are thousands of men left outside the walls 
of any faith, who cannot accept Protestantism, 
which they have shaken off, who will not surren- 
der their proper freedom of thought to Rome, but 



154 THE FAILUKE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

who are craving for a faith of some kind — for a 
Christianity with reality, robustness, and common 
sense in it. 

But let us see a little more about the action 
of this Convention. In discussing the first ques- 
tion that was up, the Rev. Dr. J. T. Duryea said 
that " whereas the Saviour had laid the com- 
mand on His disciples to go and preach the Gos- 
pel to every creature, Christian people were be- 
ginning to realize the startling fact that the Gos- 
pel was not presented to every creature. It was 
not presented to the masses in this city. And he 
said that proportionately the Gospel was not pre- 
sented to the masses as much in the country as in 
the city. Something was wrong." Comment 
were unkind and unnecessary. We pass on. 

You will remember that the Church is large 
in England and very small in New England. Her 
Catholicity has been brought out more and more 
during the last thirty years in England, but until 
recently her Catholicity has been very little 
brought out in large sections of New England. 
Now what did the Eev. Dr. Hall and others say 
in the Convention ? Why, when somebody called 
for missionary effort in England and Germany, 
Dr. Coy said, " Germany is full of infidelity," and 
Dr. Hall, saying nothing about Germany, leaving 
the claim all right for that, " insisted that JVew 
England needed more missionary work than Old 
England," and he "bewailed the unconverted 
state of New England." Ah, what a falling off 



PE ACTIO AL ADMISSIONS OF ITS FAILUKE. 155 

under two centuries of Protestantism is liere ad- 
mitted ! New England, once filled with, converted 
Puritans, now bewailed for its unconverted state. 

Immediately after Dr. Hall's remarks, there 
fell another morceau, which we will pluck by the 
way : " Mr. Moody, of Chicago," says the report, 
" made the noteworthy remark that city missions 
had proved failures, on the ground that the wrang- 
ling among the different sects prevented the crea- 
tion of permanent congregations from the converts 
made." Whether that is the sole ground of their 
failure we will not discuss now, since it would be 
but a repetition of what has already been said. 
H. F. Durant, of Boston, then appealed to the 
ministry, " to thunder from the pulpits against 
infidelity." But suppose the writings of Theodore 
Parker, who is the legitimate brain-child of John 
Calvin, should thunder back. What then ? The 
thoughtful mind of Boston and Massachusetts 
understands, and has understood for some time, 
which has the best of the argument. 

I will not reiterate another statement I have 
made ; it will suggest itself to your minds when I 
say that at that very session the Pev. Dr. Matlock 
said, " that there was a deal of infidelity in the 
Church. All around he saw a world of human 
beings goino- down to the blackness of death." 

But let us look a little at what went on the 
last day of the Convention. In discussing the 
question, "By what means can we (the Protes- 
tants) reach those who do not come to our church- 



156 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

es ? " Mr. Moody said, among other things, " "What 
we wanted was live preaching to reach the masses ; 
that opera-singing in churches can't do it." So 
Protestantism is waking up, too, to that subordi- 
nate mistake. 

Now let us see what the Rev. Greorge Wash- 
burn said. I will not reiterate to yon what I have 
said about Catholicity's sisterhoods and brother- 
hoods. It will all suggest itself to yon as I read. 
You will remember that one of the pieces of vandal- 
ism wrought by the Continental Reformation was 
the abolition of Religious Orders. And some peo- 
ple are very much shocked indeed that our Church, 
true to her Catholicity, should, encourage the for- 
mation of Sisterhoods of Mercy. It is considered 
a very alarming symptom, if not very wicked, for 
any woman to put on a black bonnet and habit, 
and devote herself to the Lord's work. But this 
National Protestant Convention seems to have 
yielded the ground to Catholicity in this matter ; 
to have acknowledged not only that Protestantism 
has been guilty of a blunder, but of a very bad 
blunder. The subject was, " Women's work in the 
Church." Dr. Washburn said : " The theory that 
woman has no place in the Church deprives 
America of two-thirds of its Christian force. He 
wonld ask, was there any distinctive work for wo- 
men in America ? That there was, nobody would 
presume to deny. He then spoke of the work of 
women in the early Church, and of the allusions 
of St. Chrysostom and other Fathers to them. 



PEACTICAL ADMISSIONS OF ITS FAILUEE. ^57 

The work of these holy ladies was to go out and 
care for the sick and poor, the widow and the 
orphan, and to carry the Gospel into every home 
and heart. Such women they wanted in connec- 
tion with the Christian Church at the present day ; 
women who would make themselves at home in 
every house ; who would carry the precious word 
of life around with them, and give it a lasting 
tenement in the house of intemperate fathers and 
disconsolate wives and children, and thereby effect 
a complete regeneration in the morals of the way- 
faring. He would again be for appointing a sepa- 
rate class of women for visiting jails, poor-houses, 
hospitals, etc., on visits of consolation and charity. 
The existence of charitable institutions generally 
through the country would be a great boon. We 
need trained women in the Church ; we want a 
place where they can be educated for this field. 
The churches should open recruiting-offices for 
them. A home should also be established, so that, 
when our sisters return from foreign or domestic 
mission- work, they may find a place of welcome 
and of rest. Suppose we open in this city a House 
under the care of the Church. Here all women 
who desire to enlist in the service of the Lord can 
be trained and educated. He then alluded to the 
fact that the Romish Church owed two-thirds of its 
existence to the labors of females — the Society of 
St. Vincent de Paul." "Mr. McDougall highly 
eulogized the labors of the nuns in Canada. He 
said the strength of the Catholic Church lay in the 



158 THE FAILUKE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

sisterhoods which it had established. Their be- 
neficent ministrations have attached all sufferers to 
the Church that sends them forth. 5 ' u Mr. Trade, 
of Massachusetts, Mr. Gary, of Utica, and others 
spoke in high terms of approval of the object." It 
is to be trusted, after this flat acknowledgment of 
the Protestant blunder, this semi-official surren- 
der, that this will be the last we shall hear of Puri- 
tan opposition to Sisterhoods. One more remark 
on the topic I cannot refrain from quoting. The 
Rev. Mr. Blair said, " Pie was glad to see so many 
were in favor of adopting this element of strength. 
The great want of Protestantism is the aid of wo- 
men. "We are weak " — mark that — " we are wealc, 
because we have rejected the noblest of mankind 
from the work Christ gave us to do." 

But I must bring these rich quotations to a 
close. And I will do so by showing you the 
spirit which has pervaded Protestantism. The 
question was, " Why so many churches failed to 
reach the poor ? " Several clergymen spoke in 
reference to the matter, " during which the ques- 
tion of pew-fees was extensively discussed ; it be- 
ing the opinion that while the rights of the poor 
to adequate accommodations in the church should 
be regarded, those of the rich should not be vio- 
lated. The general opinion was, that proper ac- 
commodations should be secured for each, the 
places to be apportioned out to the poor to wor- 
ship in at the smallest possible expense to them." 
I have only to set over against this practice of 



PEACTICAL ADMISSIONS OF ITS FAILUEE. ^59 

Protestantism, thus defended, a certain remark 
with which some of you may be familiar. " My 
brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus 
Christ with respect of persons. For if there come 
into your assembly a man with a gold ring, in 
goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man 
in vile raiment, and ye have respect to him that 
weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit 
thou here in a good place; and say to the poor 
Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool, 
are ye not then partial in yourselves and are be- 
come judges of evil thoughts ? Hearken, my be- 
loved brethren ; hath not G 4 od chosen the poor of 
this world rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom 
which he hath promised to them that love Him % 
But ye have despised the poor." In justice be it 
said, there were speakers who opposed this " gen- 
eral opinion," and who spoke noble words of truth 
in reference to the subject. So there were at least 
marked evidences in the Convention of a reaction 
from another blunder of Protestantism.^" 

* The week after the above sermon was preached, an eminent 
clergyman of one of the " Collegiate Churches " of this city deliv- 
ered a discourse on " The Evangelization of the Masses," in which 
he made the following statements, viz. : " Every age seems to 
have had its own peculiar problem, and certainly, from the facts 
with which we are familiar, this question, How shall we evangel- 
ize the masses ? seems to be the one left for our solution. It has 
been estimated that the present population of this city is about 
three-fourths of a million of people, about one-half of whom are 
foreign born, comprising forty-two different nationalities. And 
for the spiritual improvement of this entire number there are 
about 350 churches of all denominations, capable of containing 



160 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

I now coine to another remarkable feature of 
the week. It is a leading article from one of the 
most prominent religious papers published in the 
interest of Protestantism. I select it for notice 
because it leads all that has been said on the other 
side in ability and tactics. I leave you to judge 
whether or not it is another practical admission 

less than 325,000 people. Of evangelical churches there are 275, 
able to accommodate about 200,000. Of evangelical ministers 
there are 500, but of pastors only 250. The number of evangeli- 
cal Christians is about 70,000. In other words, there are in our 
midst, this day, about 300,000 souls to whom the preaching of the 
Gospel is quite as foreign as though there were no Gospel. To 
obtain a conception of the vast multitude thus dead, as it were, to 
all Christian teaching, were they to stand side by side (allowing 
two feet for each), the line would not end till the twenty-seventh 
milestone had been passed ; or were they to sit in our city cars, 
thirty to a car, more than 10,000 cars would be required to con- 
tain them. 

" And now the question arises, How is this vast multitude to 
be brought under the sway of moral and Christian influence ? 
Bibles have been profusely scattered, and pithy tracts have been 
systematically distributed throughout the city, and there have 
been established Sabbath and mission schools, prayer-meetings, 
sewing-societies, and reading-rooms. Yarious have been the in- 
strumentalities employed to move these same multitudes, and yet 
no marked, deep religious impression has been made upon them. 
Not that the Bible and tract, the establishment of Sabbath-schools, 
missions, and the like, have done nothing for the evangelization 
of the city. By no means. But the methods which thus far have 
been pursued aimed at the religious improvement of the masses, 
as masses, have failed, inasmuch as it is undeniably true that, as 
a city, we are neither as moral nor as righteous as we were years 
ago. How, then, it is asked, is this melancholy fact to be re- 
versed ? . . . . Men may say what they may, the masses have not 
had the Gospel preached to them. And for the reason that the 



PEACTICAL ADMISSIONS OF ITS FAILUKE. ±Ql 

that the first campaign of the war is closed. " We 
can easily imagine," it says, " that some persons 
would think Dr. Ewer has the best of the argu- 
• ment from his stand-point. For, it seems to us, 
that the contest has been fought upon a false issue, 
which he has adroitly presented, and which his 
opponents have too readily allowed; that his 
premises involve a definition as to the aim of 
Protestantism which has been suffered to pass 
without scrutiny." So, it seems, the battle proving 
rather disastrous at our stand-point, the editor 
thinks it best to beat a retreat. He summons the 
Protestants away from the field, where they have 
been fighting, and tells them to mass together in 
another position, and there show fight, where they 

missionaries, whose special work thus far this seems to have been, 
do not really get at the masses." 

The remedy which he proposes is a more vigorous preaching 
of Protestantism among the masses. 

Some thirty years ago, a man was taken sick with biliousness. 
It was in Maryland. His family physician administered calomel 
to him. There being no improvement, he administered the calo- 
mel in larger doses. He tried it in powders, he then tried 
it in pill-form ; he then tried it mixed with molasses, but he 
failed totally in reaching the seat of the disease. At length it 
was resolved that a consulting physician should be called in. The 
two doctors retired into a room by themselves. They remained 
there over an hour, consulting upon the case, and then came forth 
and went into the sick man's room. He looked up inquiringly at 
them, when the consulting physician — who, by-the-way, was a man 
of very grave countenance — leaned over the bed, and, looking 

through his spectacles, said, " Mr. B , we have thought over 

this case, and we would like to know how you would like to take 
— your calomel ? " 



162 THE FAILUKE OF PROTESTANTISM, 

can do better. Let us watch, them as they run, 
and see whether it is worth our while to run after 
them. The writer says : " To begin with funda- 
mentals, when is any thing proved a failure ? It 
is when it is proved either to have ceased to exist 
without achieving its object, or that, if it still ex- 
ists, it has not, after sufficient trial, attained the 
end or ends which it proposed. "We trust that 
these positions are not questionable. ISTow, then, 
that Protestantism is a failure, because it has died 
without any results, will hardly be advanced." 

Of course not. Protestantism has had some 
results. It has not failed in a good many things. 
It has not failed in plunging Germany into infi- 
delity. It has not failed in keeping the poor out 
of churches. It has not failed in " rejecting the 
noblest of mankind" (viz., woman) "from the 
work Christ gave us to do." It has not failed, on 
the contrary, it has triumphantly succeeded in 
making Dr. Hall "bewail the unconverted state 
of ISTew England." It has not failed in substi- 
tuting a Sabellian God for the Tri-Unity. It has 
not failed in killing out all definite faith in Amer- 
ica. It has not failed in ostracizing and mobbing 
those who wish to worship in a mode different 
from its own. But I will not go on with a list of 
its successes. 

The writer continues : " That it still exists, 
will be granted by Dr. Ewer, we suppose. There- 
fore, if it is a failure, it is because it has not, after 
sufficient trial, done what it aimed at, and we 



PEACTICAL ADMISSIONS OF ITS FAILUEE. 163 

allow that it has had sufficient trial, that it may 
be judged by its history up to this day. Thus the 
question is narrowed to this, What was and is the 
object of Protestantism ? Here has been the 
error." 

Then the writer goes on to state that it is very 
easy, if they permit us to define what the aim of 
Protestantism is, for us to make out a strong case. 
He says : " Thus the reverend gentleman in ques- 
tion has impliedly assumed that Protestantism 
meant the establishment of a system, or Church, 
or organization, which was to do certain things, 
and consequently urged his points as to disin- 
tegration, etc., with force, while some of his op- 
ponents tacitly admitted this idea." Exactly 
what that sentence means to say, I do not know, 
and the use of the words " and so forth " does not 
help to clear it much. However, whatever it is, 
the writer goes on to say, " But Protestantism 
aims at no such thing." "What ! Protestantism 
not aim at preserving Christianity on earth? 
Well, if it does not aim at that, it had better 
close its doors. Protestantism, as, forsooth, the 
only true presentment of Christianity, not aim 
at reachino; the masses % Protestantism not aim 
at preserving the Bible for the world ? " Oh, 
no ! " says the writer ; the enemy flee from the 
battle-ground. " It is merely," says the writer, 
" a principle of action asserted and assumed by 
certain Christians." "Well, if it is frittered down 
to that, all we can say is, it is a worse failure 



164 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

than we took it to be. But, behold the enemy on 
the new battle-field which it has selected, and to 
which it has fled for safety. Protestantism has 
only two aims, it seems, according to the writer. 
They are not those that I have stated, at all. It 
does not care whether Christianity runs down 
into Rationalism or not. It does not care whether 
the poor have the Gospel preached unto them or 
not. It does not care whether or not vast regions 
of country, after being burned over and over 
again by the fires of Revivalism, are left at last 
dead to any religious feeling. But it seems its 
solitary aims are two — first, a negative aim, and 
second, a positive. First, " to throw off the spirit- 
ual despotism of Rome." Well, we admit that it 
has triumphantly succeeded in doing that. We 
do not deny that it has swung clear away from 
tyranny over to an equally disastrous license, 
which has wrecked its millions of souls. If that be 
success, then Protestantism is welcome to all the 
credit it can extract from it. In order for the 
writer to prove that, in succeeding in disen- 
thralling herself from Roman tyranny at the 
same time that true Catholicity did, Protestant- 
ism did not fall into an equally bad evil, and, 
therefore, make a failure of it while trving to 
right herself, he has still got to come back to our 
stand-point, and drive us from our position, that 
Protestantism is incipient Rationalism. This we 
have shown to be the case, both logically and 
historically ; and neither argument has been 



PEACTICAL ADMISSIONS OF ITS FAILURE. IQ$ 

touched. So it is hardly worth our while, unless 
something more is done, to chase up the flying 
foe on this point. 

But it seems there was one more aim of Prot- 
estantism, according to the writer. It was, "to 
promote the spread of the Bible and the preach- 
ing of the pure Gospel — the evangelical as dis- 
tinct from the sacerdotal system" ; that is to say, 
the preaching of Protestantism ! Of course, we 
admit that the Protestants have succeeded mar- 
vellously in preaching Protestantism. The foe is 
shrewd. But his shrewdness does not save him. 
He is not permitted thus to dodge the question. 
Of course, Protestantism has succeeded in preach- 
ing Protestantism, but the real question is, what 
have been the effects, the results, of that Protes- 
tantism which has been preached? The real 
question is, whether Protestantism is the " pure 
Gospel." He assumes that. But he is not per- 
mitted thus to beg the question. We admit, too, 
that Protestantism has helped true Catholicity in 
spreading the Bible. But the real question is, 
what have been the effects of the peculiar mode 
in which Protestantism has turned the Bible out 
adrift in the world ? So long as they yield to us 
the point that the effects have been bad, they are 
welcome to all the credit they can extract from 
the mere fact itself of their spreading the Bible. 
And it is still less worth our while to chase up the 
flying foe on this other point. 

And now comes the best thins: in this 



166 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

shrewdly-written paper. It is the most excel- 
lent attempt yet at clouding the matter. He 
says of us : " If our points are met, that will not 
prove Protestantism a success ; and even if they 
cannot be met, the reverse does not inevitably re- 
sult." How does he sustain this assertion ? Why, 
as follows : " If he (Dr. Ewer) shows that there 
follow upon Protestantism Rationalism and dis- 
integration of organizations, he merely shows 
that men have abused the good principle of lib- 
erty of conscience (and abuse of a good thing is 
always possible)." Certainly, if I had simply 
shown that Rationalism follows as a mere fact. 
But the difficulty is, more has been shown than 
this, viz., that the inevitable logical result of Prot- 
estantism is Rationalism ; that, if any man thinks 
and is unrestrained by other influences, such as 
prejudice, social affection, position before the 
world, or what not, he is bound to go down from 
Protestant premises to the Rationalistic conclu- 
sion ; that the Unitarians decidedly have the 
argument on the Orthodox Congregationalists. 
The mere assertion that " men may have abused 
the good principle of liberty of conscience " does 
not meet this. It is not a question as to abuse of 
a good principle. It is a question as to whether 
or not thinking men can help themselves ; whether 
they are not bound to follow premises to their 
legitimate conclusion. And there is no way for 
Protestants to escape their dilemma, but to show 



PEACTICAL ADMISSIONS OF ITS FAILUKE. 167 

that Rationalism is not the logical conclusion of 
Protestantism. But the writer goes on: "If lie 
(Dr. Ewer) shows that it (Protestantism) has failed 
to reach the masses, the reply is not to be a tit 
quoque to Catholicism, but to admit that the zeal 
of Protestants has not been equal to their light, 
not that they could not reach the masses if they 
would.*' But the difficulty, brethren, is, we have 
not only shown that Protestantism has failed to 
reach the masses, but why it has failed, and that 
it is positively not from want of zeal. And the 
points we have made on this have not been 
touched. 

Why, my friends, is it possible that what has 
hitherto been said on the other side is all that can 
be said for this great phenomenon of Protestant- 
ism ? One can hardly believe his eyes as he reads 
what has been written. But I turn to our writer. 
He concludes his article as follows, viz. : " It 
seems that this is the true way to meet the 
preacher whose words have startled and shocked 
us, by showing that he takes a false position ; and 
also, it seems that, to meet him thus, provides a 
way of turning the tables on him, on which we 
may dwell at another time. In closing, we hope 
that some one may take up and develop more at 
length, and accurately, this question which we 
have briefly sought to present — that is, what does 
Protestantism seek to do, and how has it suc- 
ceeded therein ? " The writer very prudently in- 



168 THE FAILURE OF PROTESTANTISM. 

trocluces the above paragraph with the words, 
" It may be we are mistaken." It is for you to 
decide, brethren, whether he has made out his 
ease. One thing is evident — he is keen enough 
to see that the first campaign is about closed. 



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